Our son, Peter, took his time learning to walk. He was a full 18 months old before he was willing to exchange his scoots and crawls for the life of a biped. But man that kid could talk. At daycare one time, after he inserted himself into a conversation the
I've re-started the Zooms, but 1:1. I realized I wanted more conversations—not more meetings. *** At this very moment, some of my favorite people in the world are converging on Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard’s Class of 1991—my class—is gathering for our 35th reunion. At
I think responding to the fastest-moving technology of all time with a 42,300-word treatise titled in Latin is objectively funny. So I decided to do some research on Pope Leo XIV’s AI encyclical. 1. Did Pope Leo actually write it? It sounds like the idea for
A few weeks ago, the writer Tim Urban posed this thought experiment: Much of the internet dropped what they were doing (i.e. reading the internet) to weigh in—and to fight. Here in the U.S., the red-blue coding helped turn the discussion partisan, instantly: those who said
I keep thinking of Jimmy Lai, who was born in China and became a billionaire in Hong Kong. Lai’s well-off family was decimated after the Communist takeover in 1949. Legend has it that he was working as a child porter at a train station when a visitor from
Not me. Whenever my kids describe someone this way, I’m reminded that I am decidedly not. To illustrate: above is a pic of me on the Bainbridge Island ferry this morning, trying to smile and wave as directed by a producer from Good Morning America. (My levels of self-
This one. As per the reader who sent it to me: “It reveals the capture of government by the extremely wealthy more simply and powerfully than anything else I’ve ever seen.” Many businesses, including mine, can’t afford to close for May Day. What I can do is shout
Earlier this week, I was spitballing with a friend about possible ways to keep dangerous people out of power, regardless of party: “What if we had, say, a Dehumanization Index? Where the volume of dehumanizing public statements a person has made follows them around—as a known résumé feature, much
1. I know some people manage to live in this world without losing their minds, but I am not naturally one of them. I have to work at it. 2. As part of this, I have a paper calendar that lies flat on my desk, slightly to my left, but
Every month I meet for a half day with the two people who lead the company I own. These appointments show up on my calendar as SOBs, not because my Co-CEOs are unpleasant—they are two of my favorite people in the world—but because the purpose of these
My son gave his fish an electric blanket—his electric blanket to be precise, the one he counts on to stay warm in the damp cold of a Seattle spring. My son is 16, not six, and an aspiring engineer. He knew the ideal water temperature for his new fish
Hello from the University of Washington, where I’m attending the Northwest Dispute Resolution Conference. Traditionally, attendees (mainly mediators and arbitrators) come for continuing education as “neutrals”—people whose professional codes require a certain remove in the face of conflict. This year, however, both in formal sessions and in the