"I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea."

Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz

12/22: Scenes from New York

Walked west on 10th Street this morning and caught lots of beautiful little NYC moments:

Hip NYU kids with no shoes on sitting outside their dining hall looking rebellious but decidedly well-off enough to afford shoes.

Laborers in faded white merchant vans inching past parked cars and moving trucks on their way from one job to another.

Turning the corner and heading north on 6th Ave and catching a glimpse of the dim skyline through gaps in the buildings, wondering what New York would look like without all the steel and glass and whether we’d even notice the skyline then.

A daydreaming commuter brought back to reality by three or four short muted beeps from a taxi driver.

A stranger eyeing me warily when I hold open for her the door to the blue mailbox on the corner, waiting until the last possible minute to grace me with a smile.  

Turning the corner again and simultaneously taking in the Hudson, New Jersey, the High Line, and all the old packing plants south of 14th street.

I like NYC a lot more when I keep my head up.

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Happy holidays from @hyperpublic. We celebrated last night…no lights allowed today.

Watching old Kennedy/Nixon debates.  Kennedy is unstoppable once he warms up.  Nixon sweats his way from opening statement to closing remarks.

Experimenting with Spotify

I’ve been using Spotify Premium and nothing else to play music on my phone for the last three weeks.  It’s great having unlimited access to such a comprehensive catalogue of music, but there’s something psychologically meaningful about actually purchasing music that I miss.  It puts a stake in the ground that reminds you and anyone else that this band or this album means something to you.  I felt the same way when iTunes replaced physical albums; the act of buying music felt less meaningful with mp3s than it did with CDs.

With Spotify, part of the problem lies in the UI/UX of the mobile app: if it functioned less like a buggy music search engine and more like a slick music player, I’d probably feel more connected to the music catalogue I had created.  Hopefully the next version of the app addresses this; if it doesn’t, I’ll gladly be the lame dude who switches back to the old-fashioned iPod app.

The Culture and the Problem

Until recently, I didn’t realize how much time the founders of growing startups spend on recruiting.  Talented Google-caliber engineers are few and far between, even in a city like NYC that’s admittedly crushing it of late. I’ve sat in on a number of interviews at Hyperpublic over the past few weeks and the two topics that come up most in initial conversations with engineers are Hyperpublic’s culture and the problem that we’re working to solve.

Culture is very much a catch-all and sometimes can be hard to pin down.  One test that works is to ask, “what would our employees be doing if they weren’t working?”  Playing foosball?  Reading up on a new programming language?  Drinking?  The recurring answers to this question can tell you a lot about your startup’s culture.  For the crew at HP, the vibe is loosely academic.  The office is generally quiet, with music playing in headphones and phone calls kept to a minimum.  I’d be surprised if more than 15 internal e-mails are sent in a given week.  We spend plenty of time hanging out and bonding over beers and ping pong at the Standard Biergarten, but our focus is squarely on building something great and making ourselves better programmers, designers, businesspeople, etc.  Engineers who don’t share the same ambitions probably won’t be happy here.  In that way, it’s great to see the topic of culture come up in early recruiting conversations (and before some of the more quantifiable incentives like salary, equity, etc.).

The importance of the “problem” that a startup is working on is easier to understand when it comes to recruiting.  Above all else, it needs to be complex enough to challenge a potential technical hire.  I’ve seen engineers turn down paying gigs because the problem wasn’t difficult enough.  The reverse is also true: the thrill of the challenge can be enough to attract really talented programmers.  That’s exciting news for Hyperpublic; we are working on something big. If you’re up for the challenge and adept at holding a pint glass in one hand and a ping pong racquet in the other, we’d love to talk to you.

Even more reasons to start using Path to share intimate moments with family and close friends.  The new stacks feature gives users a cool data-driven way to interact with their lives via photos.

First week at Hyperpublic and Lerer Ventures

…or “My Internship Pt. 1 — I have some idea what I’m doing.”

Last week was my first as a summer associate with Hyperpublic, a startup that’s building an open platform of rich local data, and Lerer Ventures, a venture capital fund that’s investing primarily in consumer web and media startups. I’ll be with HP and LV for the better part of the next three months.

I’ve had some really cool jobs in the last few years, but I don’t remember ever being quite as excited about one. There’s a contagious energy at HP borne out of a small group of really smart people working hard to solve a difficult problem. My favorite moments from the week all had to do with people: meeting new ones, finding out how they think, and shutting up long enough to learn from them. If last week was any indication, it looks like I’ll be shutting up a lot this summer. Jordan and Doug have put together a really awesome (and growing) team.

In typical startup fashion, every day was different. A lot of work went into preparing for the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon (we presented on Saturday). I also put together a capitalization table and a financial model, worked with lawyers to issue stock options to employees, interviewed engineers and data experts, met with the founders of a few companies that are seeking financing, and tried my hand at interior decorating (I’m hopeless).

If all goes to plan, I’ll end the summer with a broad understanding of how to run a startup. This is exactly what I was hoping for when I decided to work here. Hyperpublic and Lerer Ventures are up to awesome things and I’m ecstatic that I’ll be playing a small part in their evolution over the next few months.

"Good luck, have a good life, and if you run across a sure fire deal with a post-money of less than $2M, let me know."

Final exam instructions from a UNC professor/VC.