Lottery thinking holds people back. Don’t hope. Do the work so you don’t have to pray to a fake god to get what you want. — Our older selves are always wiser. At 26 I had a closed mind, eating disorder, and thought I was smarter than Einstein. At 36 I’ve come a long way. Some of the best lessons we can share come from the advice we’d give our younger selves. Here are my cheat…

Getting a top-tier MBA has always been an expensive proposition, setting you back something like $200,000 between tuition and living expenses (not to mention lost income). This year there may be even more reason to think long and hard before going to business school. First, you’ll face unusually stiff competition…

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Futurists from the 20th century predicted that labor saving devices would make leisure abundant. According to the great economist John Maynard Keynes, the big challenge would be that… “For the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his…

By Sonya Huang and Doug Leone Just over a decade ago, a bright young MBA student from Stanford walked into Sequoia’s offices on Sand Hill Road and fervently articulated the opportunity for startups in Latin America. That student was David Vélez. We were immediately taken by David’s presence, ambition, and…

Entire industries will be wiped out by 2030 — We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. — Bill Gates We’re at the start of an extremely bumpy road, my friends. As automation, AI, quantum computing, blockchain, and unaccountable multinational corporations invade the…

In 1993, when asked about his vision for the failing company he was chosen to lead, Lou Gerstner famously said, “The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.” …

The company and products shaping the Low-Code Movement — Low-Code / No-Code (LCNC) is a fast-evolving industry sector with a number of start-ups and several larger companies approaching the space from numerous directions and product opportunities. Whether it is creating a website, a business workflow application, or performing data analysis, the promise of LCNC tools is to enable non-technical…

One day, I was waiting in line for my morning office coffee, one colleague, usually frank and opinioned, patted my shoulder and asked: “So….. you are a strategy guy. What is strategy?” Sensed that it could turned to a long and aimless debate of opinions from ancient China battleground to…

We’ve all been there: You make a proposal to your team at a meeting, most people think it’s a good idea and seem on board, but a handful or small minority are clearly not keen on coming along for the ride. The question then is how do we get a…

Are you ready to own nothing? — You will own nothing and you will be happy. This may sound like a crazy idea, but it’s something that more and more people are starting to believe in. In an article published in Forbes by the World Economic Forum, the authors talk about how we will eventually live in…

I know it’s supposed to be ‘3 things’, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Last week marked the end of my five year journey with McKinsey & Co. As I reflect back on this incredible ride, I found it somewhat therapeutic to surface the learnings I walked away with. This is not a post…

Work is always changing, and it’s entering a period of rapid evolution — Work has been the most important thing in my life. It’s my identity, and has been the greatest source of reward. Yes, my kids mean more to me now. But, for 35 years, the majority of my waking hours, effort, skills, and even relationships have been focused on work. Is…

If you’re not taking your 1:1s seriously, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re a manager, regardless of whether you’re brand-new, have decades of experience, manage one person or a team of a hundred, continuously developing effective 1:1 skills are vital to your success and that of your team. 1:1s are…

The longer you stick to them, the greater the ROI — The shiny object syndrome is the reason most people aren’t productive. In search of the elusive (non-existent) all-powerful productivity elixir, we disregard the basic boring ones that actually work. While these habits won’t revolutionize your productivity overnight (nothing will), they’ll kickstart you in the right direction. The longer you stick…

I debated whether to write this article for a long time. How it would affect my relationships with past co-workers? How would it affect future employment opportunities? After I retired from Google, I started driving Lyft to pass the time. One time I had a Lyft passenger who was a…