Find Me Fit

Facebook is Down!

Holy shit, is Facebook really down??  And no funny / crafty slogan or image to make light of it?  LOL.

Gas prices in Maui are INSANE

30 Second Update

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged I had trouble remembering my user name and password.

In the last month I’ve…

- run my first marathon

- raised our second round of funding for Blue Lava

- celebrated an amazing new years with my closest friends and family

- not spent enough time with my parents who are visiting from Germany

- met lots of amazing people both professionally and socially

In the next month I’ll…

- Go to the Wayne Brown Venture Capital conference in Utah in early Feb

- See snow (at said conference) and snowboard for the first time in years

- Do some business in SF around mid-Feb

- Do the Great Aloha Run (come join me, it’s only 8 miles!)

- Meet many more amazing people both professionally and socially!

Today, I miss Black Rock City. I’m listening to Burning Man mixes from the Deep End. I can’t wait to go back. Music just sounds better in the desert.

Happy New Year to everyone.  May all your dreams come true this year….

Bo Burnham is the shit

Bo Burnham is a 17 year old gansta rappa from Massachusetts. He’s got some of the funniest YouTube videos I have ever seen. I bet he’s got an amazing future ahead of him.

Fresh beats for your ears

My friend Jeff Taylor, founder of Eons.com, just pointed me to his MySpace page where he’s got some awesome mixes that he’s made. He also built a _badass_ and absolutely huge dome at Burning Man this year called The Roots Society. This man knows how to party. Check out a video I took inside his, um, “tent.”

The Meaning of Symbols

I find entrepreneurs to be a remarkably supersticious folk, much like an athlete and his favorite glove. Although I’d bet money that the vast majority of tech entrepreneurs are atheist or agnostic, I would also bet that many of them have weird quirks about particular symbols and objects in their lives.

Recently I discovered that a good friend of mine has a thing for the infinity symbol. Well, that’s interesting. So do I.

Which brings me to wonder to what extent symbols play a role in our lives. Is there energy in things like that? Can carrying a symbol around really help shape a person’s reality? Or is it just a middleman for the power of our faith and will power? Kind of like belief in God allows people to indirectly believe in themselves. That kind of faith enables people to accomplish things they might “think” they’re too weak to accomplish - but now they can with God’s “support.” Religious faith hence becomes a conduit for a person’s will power. Most people don’t want to acknowledge their personal brilliance any more than they want to stare at the sun directly. Is symbolic faith the same? Middle man, source of energy, both, neither?

I asked my friend and he had a classic response: “I think, therefore I am. I think about infinity, therefore I am.” And yes, he’s been infinitely successful with that approach.

The Meaning of Life…Revisited

My best friend Zach had a sleepless night in Boston yesterday. In the process he had the opportunity to think and write about what really matters in life. He emailed this to me at 4 in the morning. It really stuck:

It’s one of those nights where I can see everything from my window. The parking lot downstairs. The ocean. The shadows in my room. It’s one of those nights where it’s very calm here and I’m left with a few questions–like what’s more important than money, or influence, or the things we often discuss. And it’s one of those nights when I have an answer for you.

So, what’s more important than those things? That part of your past, early childhood, in which you made resolutions to yourself which you are now trying to honor—that part of childhood where the world formed in front of you, some of which you could not partake in—some of which scared you. Those promises we made then. Those things we wanted to be, to do, to prove.

Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about—but the most important thing to me is people, and discovering what motivates them—hearing stories—not the stories they have told to hundreds of other people—but the stories that they themselves forgot about—the ones that are true and unembellished—the kind that unravel slowly….

There are millions of very rich people in the world. Hundreds, even, of billionaires. I think money is great. And I’m not about to lecture here…but what’s even more important to me is not sleep walking through my life: inspiring people and being inspired by them…creating something meaningful, creating something Great.

Z

More Thoughts on the Starfish

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to be a better leader.  Time and time again I come across examples of leadership that involve just getting out of the way and getting everyone involved.  Empowering people you work with to lead themselves.  The Starfish and the Spider is a great example of that philosophy.  So is Sam Walton’s “Made In America,” which is one of the best books I’ve read on leadership.

Many of the people I know that I admire are fantastic communicators.  They’re always sharing all the details of what they’re doing with everyone they work with to build a sense of teamwork and participation.  It’s completely natural as opposed to forced.

It’s taken me a long time to get used to communicating more.  Even this blog is an exercise in communication.  Just sharing my thoughts so that the people I know, know what’s on my mind.  It doesn’t come naturally to me.  But I do really care about the people around me, especially the people I work with, and books like The Starfish and the Spider remind me how important it is to continue communicating as much as I can.

Who Knew the Internet was Addictive?

Apparently China has a real problem with cyber junkies. 13% of China’s Internet users under the age of 18 (2.6 million) are classified as addicts. These kids pretty much spend all day and night playing video games until they go insane. WOW. No, literally, that’s the game that killed this kid (World of Warcraft).

Now China has a camp to cure Internet addicts. Wow.

I wonder what the stats for “Internet addiction” in the US are?

It’s the Little Things

Ever noticed how when you send an email, you almost always sign off something like “best regards, Lorenz”?

Ever noticed how when you send a message or especially a comment on a social network you don’t?  Is it because our SN identities are so closely linked to our message that it becomes redundant to sign off?  Or are SN communications more conversational in nature, and hence don’t warrant a sign off any more than we need to say “over and out” after each sentence when we’re chatting on the phone?