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| tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog
"It is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
I used to use the same password everywhere. In 1993, I crashed a Clinton inauguration party at a restaurant in DC, and for years my password was a derivative of that restaurant's name. I'd read somewhere that it was a good idea to include numbers in your passwords, so I picked a number and my "standard" password became "restaurant#name". Sometime a few years later, I read that symbols were good too - so the stand-by became "restaurant[number]name[symbol]". Every time I set that as my password, the password strength meters measured off the charts: it used a number and a symbol, wasn't in the dictionary, and I was probably the only person in the world with that particular password.
But things began to get messy. Some sites didn't allow symbols. Others had a max character limit. As sites got more serious about security, some required mixed cases (some capitals, some lower case). Inevitably, my "standard" password became more like a template, with a half dozen derivatives. And it became increasingly hard to remember which site had which derivative.
Several years ago, I realized that one password to rule them all was probably a bad idea. After all - if someone got ahold of my nytimes.com password, they'd probably be able to log into Amazon, Gmail, PayPal and any number of other sites. I resolved to use a pattern that was site-specific. That was marginally better, but anyone who got ahold of my password at one site could probably figure out my password on other sites.
Then in December of 2010, Gawker was compromised, and the hackers didn't just publicize that they'd breached Gawker's servers, they published a file of all usernames and passwords. I had an account at Gawker, and as a result my password - and the simple pattern used to construct it - was available for the world to see. I'd read about password managers at the time, but thought that since I'd been able to survive for 15 years without one, I'd be OK just hardening my "standard" password. My new pattern incorporated the year, but now I had an even worse mess on my hands: I had dozens of accounts, and depending on when I'd last accessed them, a password that followed one of three possible patterns (with any number of derivatives). My method was falling apart. When 2012 arrived, it was clear I was toast. I couldn't have a year-dependent password pattern - did I open that account in 2011? 2012? Did I update it in 2010?
This weekend, Zappos's 24 million customer accounts were compromised (I was one of them). Though we don't yet know how broad the breach was, or whether the attackers will publish an account list like the Gawker attackers did, I didn't need another reminder. It was time to get serious about my passwords.
I asked people on Google+ and Twitter what they used to manage their passwords, and people overwhelmingly recommended two services - LastPass and 1Password. LastPass had a few more recommendations overall, so I started there.
First off, a quick summary of what LastPass is: you create a username and password with LastPass, and as you log into websites it asks whether you'd like to store those in your LastPass "vault". Once stored, each username and password is available to you wherever you can access LastPass - whether on your computer, on a guest computer, on your mobile device, etc. If you're creating a new account, LastPass can generate a very secure password - it won't be memorable, it isn't guessable, and it'll be unique to that site and your username. (I just asked LastPass to generate a new password, here's what it came up with: "kkVUI8nZ".)
With that in mind, here's what I did to get serious about my passwords. I'll warn you: this took a fair amount of time - easily 6+ hours in total over a couple days, and I'm not actually done (I keep thinking of more accounts to upgrade). That said, I am much happier with my overall security than I was going into the weekend, and as an added benefit I have a master list of every account I use on the Internet.
1. Set up a LastPass account. This username will be your master login for LastPass, and the password should be very secure, but one you can remember - if you lose it, you'll regret it. (It's not necessarily an "abandon all hope"moment, but it's close.)
2. Download LastPass Chrome extension. I use Chrome exclusively as my browser, and often jump from my MacBook Air to my Chromebook. LastPass has a Chrome extension that makes LastPass completely integrated with the browser, which made the next several steps much easier. (LastPass has integrations with IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera, so you should be good to go regardless of which browser you use.)
3. Install the Android app. The core LastPass service is free, but the premium service - for a whopping $1/month - means I can use their Android app to access my password vault directly from the phone. That's handy - especially with a number of mobile apps I use for banking and the like - and well worth the minimal cost.
4. Clear cookies and saved passwords, set Chrome to never remember passwords. This avoids me automatically logging into any site I visit (which is a nice forcing function to upgrade the password as I'm prompted to log in) and avoids Chrome and LastPass fighting over who gets to save the username/password when entered (I want LastPass to do so).
5. Upgrade passwords. I started a Google Spreadsheet to list all the accounts I could think of. I got to 30 pretty quickly, and after a few more minutes added another 15. But I knew there were more. I've used Gmail for all e-mail for the last six years, so I headed over to Gmail to find all the accounts hidden within. Here are some Gmail searches I used to find little-used and long-forgotten accounts, some of which had saved credit cards stored in them and other data that I'd like to protect:
to:me "new account"
to:me "new login"
to:me password reset
to:me receipt
to:me account confirmation
to:me username
There were other searches that were useful; you get the idea (and can probably think of others that'd produce additional logins). As I found a new site that had a login for me, I added it to the Google Spreadsheet. Within an hour, my account list was well over 100 logins.
Once I had the full list, I then opened a new tab and tried to log in to each site, one at a time. (I often couldn't remember which pattern derivative my password was for that particular site; if that was the case, I just clicked 'forgot password' and used that feature to reset my login.) Once in, I then chose the "change password" option, and used LastPass to generate a new, secure password. Upon confirmation of the new password being set, LastPass would ask if I'd like to save the new password in my vault - which of course I did.
6. Rinse, lather, repeat. As diligent as I was, I thought of another dozen accounts (college and law school alumni sites, couple other news sites, etc.) last night that I've added to the Google Spreadsheet and will tackle shortly. Though LastPass is now managing over 100 logins for me, I expect there are another 50-75 I have forgotten about that I will accumulate in the next month or two. (Update: since starting this blog post, I've found another 30. It never ends!)
7. Turn on Google Authenticator support in LastPass. Last year, I wrote about best practices for keeping your Google Account secure , and spent a bit of time talking about 2-step verification. The premise is simple: with 2-step verification enabled, your username and password alone do not grant you access to your account. You need something else - in this case, a code that is visible only on your mobile phone - to get access. The idea behind this is that your phone is likely to be in your possession - and only yours - so that a bad actor who might have found a way to get your username and password would still be unable to get access to your account. LastPass works with Google Authenticator, which means that you'll only be able to unlock your password vault if you physically have possession of your phone - yet another layer of security that all but guarantees that you will keep prying eyes out of your private info.
As I got to accounts that I hadn't used in years, I thought hard about deleting the account - and in several cases did just that. If I kept the account, obviously it's ideal to upgrade the password to something more secure than my previous password. But removing the account altogether was an even more secure alternative - and I'll remember those services that make removing accounts easy for when I need a service like that again. Services that don't make it easy to delete your account shouldn't expect to see me ever again.
One final LastPass feature that I adore: sharing. Not all passwords that are in my name/e-mail address are mine alone. Our utilities, for instance, all have the ability to log in and review past invoices, pay bills, etc. but they require a single username/password to manage. Rather than make my wife remember one of these LastPass-generated passwords or rely on an insecure, memorable password, LastPass allows me to share a password with her through LastPass. This is no less secure, but far more convenient - and if we ever need to update the password, LastPass will manage the updates and ensure that we both have the current version.
Thanks to the many people who responded on Google+ and Twitter - I'm really happy with the outcome and only annoyed that I didn't do this years ago!
Welcome to the new year. If your current job isn't thrilling you and you resolved to find a job you love in 2012, be sure to visit the Google Ventures job board. Our growing portfolio of start-ups are hiring - as of this writing, there are 371 jobs waiting to be filled.
Whether you're looking for a job in California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Texas, or Washington, there are engineering, HR, bizdev, marketing, sales, design and ops roles that need to be filled. (Not in the US? Our portfolio companies are hiring in Germany, China, Brazil, Switzerland, Spain, and Hong Kong too.)
Rather work at Google? Google's hiring too.
Comcastic image from barbariangroup.com.
Last month I contemplated something unthinkable (for me): I thought about breaking up with TiVo. I started my relationship with TiVo 11 years ago, with a Sony DirecTiVo box that I still consider among the best consumer electronics purchases I've ever made. Since then, I've gone through several TiVo boxes, as we moved from DirecTV to Comcast, from standard def to HD.
So why consider leaving? In short, my wife and I (not to mention our kids) are watching less and less broadcast TV, opting instead for what we can get on demand. Netflix Instant is great for tv series and some diamond-in-the-rough films, and Amazon VOD (both the free-to-Prime subscribers as well as the on-demand rentals) has been great. Though both services technically work with our TiVo boxes, the interface for both on our GoogleTV is much better, and has been how we consume both services. As a result, we found we were watching fewer and fewer recorded shows from the TiVo, and we were watching the on-demand services through GoogleTV, bypassing TiVo altogether. By moving to the Comcast boxes, we'd also get access to Comcast's On Demand programming, which we pay for through our monthly subscription but have no way to access (TiVo and Comcast have been claiming On Demand support is coming for years, but even if/when it does come, it'll likely be on TiVo equipment I don't own).
Off I went to Comcast to pick up a couple Comcast HD DVRs. I'd conveniently suppressed my last experience with Comcast equipment (that post is worth a read, btw), came home and hooked the first box up. It should have been simple, plugging the HDMI cable that had previously been connected to the TiVo into the Comcast box. (That HDMI cable is plugged into the GoogleTV box, which sends an HDMI signal to our receiver, which sends an HDMI signal to our TV.) Try as I might, I couldn't get anything to display on the television. The front of the Comcast box seemed to read "dU1", and I could only see a blue screen on the TV.
I called Comcast, which produced nothing actionable - the best they could offer was that I should try a different box. (I already had.)
After some Googling, I figured out what was up. It's called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (or HDCP), and it's been in place for years. Turns out, Comcast doesn't trust me! Though I pay Comcast several hundred dollars per month - and was actually contemplating paying another $25/month for the two boxes - if I wanted to plug that HDMI cable into anything other than directly into my television, they consider me a pirate and forbid me from using my equipment at all. (That "dU1" error was actually saying "DVI", but given the limitations of the 1980s-era display on the cable box, that was the best they could come up with. To use the box, I'd need to revert to non-HDMI cabling, separating the video signal from the audio signal.)
I immediately unplugged the Comcast box and returned both. Re-connected the TiVos, and went back to using my equipment exactly how I wanted (which, by the way, is entirely legal).
So here's a 2012 resolution I intend to keep: companies who trust me get more of my money. Companies who don't trust me, or who implement unnecessary technical limitations on equipment I pay for and intend to use legally? Not so much.
BTW, Fred Wilson has a related rant up today titled #screwcable:
I've long believed that piracy is largely a business model problem not a human behavior problem. If you give people a legal way to consume the content they want, they will pay for it.
Amen.
Interestingly enough, this same attitude - restricting innovation to protect legacy business models - is the very issue at the heart of the SOPA debate going on in Washington, DC as I write this. Though those of us opposing SOPA made progress last month, the fight is by no means over. Please visit Engine Advocacy (today!) and call Congress today to let your representatives know that you do not want to let the US government censor the web and further restrict users' legitimate uses of new technologies.
In keeping with my 2012 information diet, I've resolved to both blog more and take more photographs. Late last year I upgraded my camera - from a Nikon D80 to a Nikon D7000. Thought I'd document a bit about the gear I'm using and how I'm committing more to my photography hobby.
My primary lens is a Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II lens; I waffled a bit between this lens and a better zoom (had my eye on the Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8), but ultimately opted for the greater flexibility of the 18-200, along with the VR capabilities in the lens that should make hand-held shooting better. (For good reviews of the 18-200 that helped me make up my mind, see Thom Hogan and Ken Rockwell.) It also didn't hurt that the 18-200, while not inexpensive, was quite a bit less than the 80-200.
I put a 72mm Hoya UV filter on the lens, and will probably pick up a polarizing filter before our summer trip to Alaska.
Ade Oshineye echoed a recommendation I'd heard from several photographers: keep the camera with me at all times. To make that a bit easier, I picked up the Kata 3n1-33 backpack that will carry my camera and gear, as well as my laptop, power cords and books. I've really liked the bag, which can be a backpack or a sling, and features a nice easy-access compartment that makes getting to the camera really fast. Thanks to Chris White for the recommendation on Google+ - it's been a great bag so far.
After I upgraded the camera body, I asked for some recommendations on books that'd help me improve, and have picked up several of the books that were suggested:
Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. This book does a great job explaining the 3 critical parts of a photo: ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Great illustrations and very readable copy make this a very solid explanation of how pictures are composed and how to get the right exposure every time.
David Busch's Nikon D7000. I read through the Nikon manual - it does a great job explaining how to do things with the D7000's incredibly sophisticated controls. But what's missing is the why you'd do certain things - why you'd use one auto-focus option over another, why you'd tweak that noise reduction setting, why you'd choose one option over another. Busch's guide is a veritable bible for the camera, and is giving me much more appreciation for what the camera can do (and how I can take control of it).
David Busch's Nikon D7000 field guide. This stays in the Kata bag, and is a condensed version of the D7000 bible mentioned above.
BTW, many thanks to some great photographers/friends for their advice on Google+: Erica Joy, Chris Chabot, Bud Gibson, Ade Oshineye, David Hobby, and Thomas Hawk. You should follow them!
Finally, I've switched from Picasa to Adobe Lightroom for managing my photos. While I was generally happy with Picasa, I've found Lightroom to be a more fully-featured app - both for managing photos shot in RAW and for the large volume of photos I'm shooting. I'm still getting the hang of it, but have found Adobe's Lightroom TV a great collection of tutorials to get more out of the app.
Of course, none of this is any good without developing a better eye, and lots of practice. To that end, I'm following a lot of photographers on Google+ and observing what I like (and what I can understand!), and am trying to take a lot more pictures. I've had the camera less than a month and have taken well over 1,000 pictures. We took some family down to Monterey right before Christmas, and I took a couple shots I'm really happy with:
Really looking forward to taking many more thousands of pictures in 2012. Stay tuned!
This past summer I had lunch with Clay Johnson, and he told me he was hard at work on a book called The Information Diet. I read an early manuscript copy, and am excited to see that the Kindle version of Clay's book is out as of yesterday.
I'm over-simplifying, but his general premise is that we don't have an information overload problem, we have an information obesity problem. In the same way obesity is less a result of too much food and more about the wrong kind of food, our problem today is that we are spending too much time consuming the wrong information, and we're not disciplined enough about how/when/where we consume the right information. After reading his book, I can say he makes a compelling case.
First, a bit of background: I met Clay when he worked on the Dean campaign, and I was a very active volunteer from Illinois. The Dean campaign was full of smart, idealistic people like Clay - and for much of the summer and fall of 2003, it looked like smart and idealistic was going to take our country back. It was fun while it lasted.
I remained friends with Clay and active in politics after the Dean campaign ended. I had the incredible opportunity to be the lead blogger on then-State Senator Obama's campaign blog. I eventually landed at a startup in Chicago, which was then acquired by Google and we moved to California.
Over the last 4 years, I've become frustrated by the seeming broken-ness of the political system. Conservatives watch Fox News and read Drudge, liberals watch MSNBC and read Daily Kos. Both are not only certain they're right, they're flabbergasted that the other guys are dumb enough to fall for the obvious agenda of their news outlet of choice.
Through some combination of my law school training, some of that latent political idealism, and having some family members whose opinions diverge with my own but are often exceptionally well-informed, I actually want a strong opposition (whether that happens to be my team or the other team - doesn't matter). I believe that the other side of the aisle often has points that are not only valid, they may actually be convincing. Though I strongly identify with many of the core ideals of the Democratic Party, I have frequently voted against candidates from that party.
Clay's own evolution - from campaign operative to political activist to transparency advocate to author - echoes some of those same concerns. Once he understood that much of what he was working on was treating symptoms rather than the cause of the problems he was confronting, he set out in search of the root cause. And that's where the Information Diet comes in.
Clay's book is worth your time and attention, and more importantly it should lead to some evaluation of your own behaviors to see how you can get in shape (informationally, that is). Using the analogy of factory farming - drawing a line from the subsidization of cheap calories to a direct impact on the nation's obesity - Clay goes into the trend of mass-produced "content" (not really "news" or even "information", but content). In the same way that cheap calories lead to unfit consumers, cheap content has led to unfit information habits. It's easy to find the content that agrees with you, that reinforces your point of view, and proves, once and for all, that everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot.
Problem is, it's just as easy for them to do the same thing. Where that leads us is to a government that's threatened three times in the last five months to shut down over partisan bickering. It leads to the demonization of the opposition, it leads to a total lack of investment in healthy discourse.
I turned 40 this year, and I've made a promise to myself that I'll exercise more and eat better. I'm doing OK on that front - but I'm nowhere near establishing the habits needed to have this be part of my daily routine. But I am committed to it, and know that with some discipline I'll be in a better place. That is the not-altogether-earth-shattering message of Clay's book, but it's delivered in a way that's entirely achievable. Once I saw the connection between information consumption habits and the fracturing of our political discourse, I resolved to get my own act together. I expect others will have a similar reaction. With that in mind, here's my information diet:
RSS: I actually started this process after chatting with Clay this summer, but am going back through my Reader subscriptions. I'd once subscribed to as many as 300 RSS feeds; that number is down to 50 or so and I expect I'll get it down to 20 by the end of the year. Most bloggers I subscribe to I also follow on Twitter or Google+, so I'm removing those subscriptions (I find the ensuing conversation on those services easier to follow too, which is a bonus of moving my attention there away from the blog's feed alone.)
E-mail: Over the past few weeks, I've unsubscribed from almost every e-mail list I've received mail from. I've removed myself from 40 lists this week alone, and expect that by the time I'm done I'll have left over 100 e-mail lists. If I continue to see mail I don't want, I may give Unsubscribe.com a look. Bottom line - I almost never read the promotional e-mails anyway, and the distraction of seeing the unread messages count increment by one when they come in - resulting in me having to archive/delete/unsub/spam/whatever the message means that it just takes time away from otherwise productive time. Beyond that, I'm going to try very hard to block time to process e-mail (I'm pretty terrible at letting my inbox dictate how I manage my time) and keep Gmail closed otherwise.
Production: I recently got a new camera, and this blog happens to turn 10 years old next week. I like producing stuff - but have fallen out of the habit of actually creating stuff I enjoy. In the year ahead, I'm going to focus more on blocking time to write - it's how I learn, since I don't really understand something until I can explain it to someone else. Ditto on the photography - we have a couple big trips planned in 2012 and I want to be good enough with the camera to take pictures worthy of what we're going to see.
Politics: I've already cut back dramatically on what I consume on politics; it's pretty much down to Talking Points Memo (its founder, Josh Marshall, has been a friend of mine for 15 years) and Political Wire. To those sources (both of which have a liberal bent, TPM moreso than PoliticalWire) I'm going to add a few conservative commentators I respect (like Reihan Salam from National Review). Beyond that, I'm going to spend more time understanding the local issues in my community - in Illinois I chaired the democratic party in my city, so I knew many of the local officials, understood most of the important issues. Since moving here, I've had almost no contact locally - that's going to change.
Social Networks: I'm a very active consumer and producer of info on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook - with very different audiences on each. I don't expect that will change much, though I think like e-mail I'll be a bit more diligent about blocking time when I engage rather than keeping tabs open in Chrome with each service running.
The irony of a book about an information diet producing a blog post from me that runs to a couple thousand words is definitely not lost on me. But that's part of the point: the book's important. It's not a fad diet book, it's a healthy living diet book. In much the same way that turning 40 made me think about what really mattered to me - producing a resolution to be more committed to exercise and a healthy food diet - Clay's book helped me take a hard look at how I interact with information. I'm already changing my behavior, and expect you will to.
There's a pretty bad bill going through DC right now. Quoting at length from Matt Cutts' blog post I Need Your Help from earlier this week:
Here?s what I need:
1. Take a few minutes to learn about the SOPA/E-PARASITE/PROTECT IP bills. They?re really bad bills.
2. Take five minutes to call your Congressperson on the phone. If you live in Texas, Michigan, Vermont, or Iowa, this goes double for you.
3. Get the word out. Tell your friends on Facebook, Twitter (maybe a hashtag like #stopsopa), or Google+. If your parents live in a different state, ask them to call their Congressperson too.
I would really, really appreciate the help. If you?re the kind of person who reads my blog or follows me online, I?m pretty sure the more you read about SOPA, the less you?ll like it.
If SOPA becomes law, it could stifle the innovation (and jobs) that the technology industry creates. That?s why Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, Google, Yahoo, eBay, AOL, LinkedIn, and Zynga all oppose SOPA. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue?Red State thinks SOPA is a bad idea too.
Against my better judgment, I am participating in Movember this month. If you don't know about Movember, this Chrome ad does a pretty good job summing it up:
If you would like to support me in this quest to make me look ridiculous, I would very much appreciate you making a donation of any amount on my Movember page - http://mobro.co/rklau.
As Bartles and Jaymes used to say, thank you for your support.
I'm more than a little excited about this: Uncharted 3 comes out tomorrow, and I just got e-mail confirmation from Amazon that my pre-order copy shipped earlier today.
If you haven't played a game in the Uncharted franchise before, you're missing out. I'm not a hard-core gamer (I hadn't owned a console for almost 20 years until I got a PS3 for Christmas a couple years ago), and Uncharted 2 remains the only modern game I've played from beginning to end.
Uncharted 2 is an incredible game - I picked it back up this past week while my Dad was in town, and my Dad (even less of a gamer than I am!) made it through 1/3 of the game over the course of his visit - and loved it. (Side note: playing video games with your Dad late into the night the same week you turn 40 is about as cool as it gets.) It's funny, thrilling, and at times surprising - and easy for a newbie like me to pick up and still feel engaged. As I said to my Dad - Uncharted - not Indiana Jones - is the franchise Steven Spielberg would build today if he were 22 years old. And after playing Uncharted, it's not hard to understand how the video game industry is bigger than the film industry.
I've deliberately avoided watching any of the game play videos or reading the reviews in depth. All I know is that I'm going to have a lot of fun hanging out with Nate Drake again in the weeks ahead.
I turned 40 yesterday. It's been a great week - we celebrated at the house with friends Saturday night, then my parents arrived for the actual day and we had a terrific meal at home followed by gifts and cake.
Though I've been fortunate to have received some wonderful birthday gifts over the years, nothing really compares to what my wife coordinated for this year. Earlier this year, we got a letter from my friend Bill's wife April - Bill was turning 40, and in lieu of gifts, April wanted Bill's friends to send him a book that meant something to them, along with an inscription inside saying who it was from and why they sent it. We loved the idea, and I eagerly sent 3 books to Bill.
Robin thought it was such a great idea that she'd do the same for me - and last night I unwrapped nearly 50 books from friends around the country. I don't know what's more incredible: the thoughtfulness that so many dear friends put into the selection of the books (and the messages they inscribed), that I've only read a handful of the books (each of which I'll read again now), or that I now have easily a year's worth of amazing reading ahead of me. Opening the books last night and reading the messages inside of each was the absolute best birthday gift imaginable.
Even better? Apparently more are on the way! To everyone who contributed a book (you know who you are!) - thank you so, so much. This list reflects the diverse personalities everyone who participated, and I am blessed beyond measure to have such remarkable friends.
For those who are curious to see what was sent, the list is below.
Miracle in the Andes, Nando Parrado
Fool, by Christopher Moore
Boss - Richard Daley of Chicago, by Mike Royko
Are You There Vodka? It?s Me, Chelsea, by Chelsea Handler
Elk Talk, by Don Laubach and Mark Henckel
It?s Your Ship - Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff
The Devil Drives - A Life of Sir Richard Burton, by Fawn M. Brodie
The Power of One, by Bryce Courtney
Surely You?re Joking, Mr. Feynman, by Richard P. Feynman
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland
How to Negotiate Like a Child, by Bill Adler, Jr.
The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
Dr. Horrible?s Sing-Along Blog: The Book, by Joss Whedon
A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle
The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston
All About Elk, by North American Hunting Club
Winston Churchill: The Last Lion Vol. 1 - Visions of Glory and Vol. 2 - Alone, by William Manchester
The Girl on the Fridge, by Etgar Keret
Pastoralia, by George Saunders
A Guidebook to Learning, by Mortimer J. Adler
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Heroes of the Hall: Baseball?s All-Time Best, by Ron Smith
Bethel, by Patrick Tierney Wild
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Wine & War, by Don & Petie Kladstrup
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
The Lobster Chronicles, by Linda Greenlaw
Going Rogue, by Sarah Palin
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, by James Gleick
I Know This Much is True, by Wally Lamb
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
Ocean City Volume 1 and 2, by Nan DeVincent-Hayes
Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein
Set Lighting Technician?s Handbook, by Harry C. Box
The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
This is Water, by David Foster Wallace
The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
Better by Saturday, by Golf Magazine
Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
Domestic Violets, by Matthew Norman
The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown
A Hidden Wholeness, by Parker J. Palmer
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, by Christopher Moore
False Sanctuary, by Del Gibson
Sailing Alone Around the Room, by Billy Collins
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
I'm very excited to share the news that I recently joined Google Ventures as a partner, where I'm going to be running Startup University. Startup U is our dedicated effort at helping entrepreneurs at our growing portfolio companies benefit from our experience and that of our colleagues at Google.
For those who know me, you know what an ideal role I consider this. I have loved working at Google, and consider it a true privilege to continue to work among such incredible colleagues. While leaving YouTube was an excruciatingly hard decision - I loved my coworkers at YouTube, and am excited about what's coming up from them - the role that I've been asked to take on at Google Ventures was simply too perfect for me.
I've worked at a number of startups - most recently FeedBurner, which was acquired by Google in 2007. Before that, there was Socialtext, and before that a couple of software companies focused on the legal space (I'm a lawyer by background, for those who didn't know). Before Google, the largest company I'd worked for was just 200 people - I'd worked at a couple companies of just a dozen people. FeedBurner had 6 employees when I joined. I've been on phone calls where founders discussed postponing pay so they could pay the other employees. I've held my breath as we waited for news of the Big Win - some hits, lots of misses. And I've been in the midst of some pretty spectacular crises (maybe a blog post or two in there, come to think of it!) where we wondered if we'd weather the storm.
Which is all my way of saying that I've lived the startup life - good, bad and in between. But in the last four years I've lived the Google life, and seen countless reminders of what an extraordinary collection of talent, experience and insight Google is. When Joe and Bill first reached out to me about joining Google Ventures, I started thinking about what it might look like if we could combine the deep experience of the Ventures team (many of whom have far more impressive entrepreneurial cred than I do) along with the collective expertise of tens of thousands of Googlers. I've been excited ever since, and I formally joined several weeks ago.
If you haven't seen the story that ran earlier this week in TechCrunch about my move, it's worth reading. Not for anything it says about me, but for how Google Ventures as a whole is thinking about Startup U. Startup U is not about telling the portfolio companies how to do things. Instead, it's about setting them up to succeed - and if they're going to make a mistake, let's make sure they don't repeat the ones we made.
The early feedback from companies in our portfolio is exceptionally positive. We have a number of experiments we intend to try in the months ahead, and I cannot wait to report back on what's working (and what's not).
For those who've been in the startup trenches before: what do you wish you'd had access to? What mistakes do you wish you could have avoided? And for those of you thinking about taking the plunge: what assistance/guidance/input would be invaluable to you?
I'm all ears!
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