Continuations

“Infinite growth in a finite world is an impossibility” goes a popular quote. It is usually rolled out to illustrate that sustainability requires humanity to impose limits. Sometimes people then point to a specific element that they argue we will run out of in relatively short order, for instance phosphorus. I believe that this view is fundamentally wrong and ultimately dangerous. Instead, I propose a different motto “A finite world requires infinite growth.” To explain my disagreement let me...

Recently someone tweeted at me that I should read Ishmael by David Quinn in response to a piece I posted about the need for unlimited growth in a finite world. Well I have read it and now find myself wondering if people endorsing it, including Jack Dorsey, have spend much time thinking about it. The book consists mostly of a dialogue between a teacher (an astute and telepathic gorilla) and a student (a somewhat befuddled human who slowly learns how to see the world as desired by his teacher)....

I find it difficult to think of another time with as much macro risk as the present at least since the financial crisis and likely much longer than that. There is a shooting war in Europe with no clear endgame. China might make a move on Taiwan at any moment. We have an ongoing pandemic that could still produce a dangerous variant. US democratic institutions appear incapable of mounting a coherent response to pretty much anything and are under attack from within. The broader stock market has ...

I wrote a post recently as to why web3/crypto matter. A logical follow on question is: why aren’t we further along, given that Bitcoin is over ten years old? Part of the answer is that blockchain technology is complex and there is still a lot to figure out. But another part of the answer is that there is a chicken and egg problem to be solved that has echoes of the historic adoption of the web itself. I remember well discovering the web in a lab at MIT due to the Mosaic web browser showing up...

Among a lot of Democrats, Senator Manchin is persona non grata. And while I am not exactly a fan of his either, there is something profoundly wrong about how Democrats are approaching crises with massive bills. I was asked to publicly support the Build Back Better Act because of its climate provisions and there is no way I would do that given that it is a bloated monstrosity. Going back to the American Recovery and Re-investment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Democrats’ approach has been to throw ev...

Other than a few tweets I have stayed quiet on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as I was reading a ton to try and form an opinion. I am writing this post as much for myself as anyone else, as writing helps me clarify my thinking and also records it so I can go back to it at a later point. For those who just want the conclusion up front: I believe NATO needs to push back hard on Russia now, including supplying much more equipment to Ukraine. We also urgently need to stop our energy purchases from ...

Many leaders and also parents mistakenly believe that the only way to be demanding is to be a jerk. I had found myself trapped in this flawed thinking at times. What made a huge difference for me was understanding that there are actually two dimensions to leadership (parenting): the demanding and the caring dimension, as shown here in a graph from Angela Duckworth’s wonderful book Grit:It has recently occurred to me that much of the debate about society is caught in a similar one-dimensionali...

Elizabeth Holmes was convicted on 4 counts of fraud related to her role as founder & CEO of Theranos. Was she treated differently than male entrepreneurs? It is certainly true that there hasn’t been a high profile criminal case against a male entrepreneur in quite a while, at least not one that I can recall (although I am old enough to remember Bernard Ebbers’s conviction in the Worldcom case and Jeffrey Skilling’s conviction in the Enron case). But beyond that observation, I believe that it’...

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra Yoga works. Meditation works. Conscious breathing works. By “works” I mean that these practices have positive effects for people who observe them. They can help build and retain strength and flexibility of both body and mind. The fact that they work shouldn’t be entirely surprising, given that these practices have been developed over thousands of years through trial and error by millions of people...

One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...