Brad Feld

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Fire Congress and Revel in Systemic Anomalies

Nov 02, 2008
Category Books

To celebrate today’s New York Marathon, I went for a hard and fast run in the mountains near my house.  There’s nothing quite like grinding your way up a hill for three miles and then turning around and running down it as fast as you can.  As I reflected on my run, I am kind of amazed at the range of thoughts that went through my head over the course of an hour.

Since I finished my run, I’ve been sitting on my couch, catching up on email and blogs, and getting ready to lose myself in Defrag for the next two days.  Following are some of the great things I came across.

  • Fire Congress: I was with Art Marks from Valhalla at a super top secret meeting on Monday night and all day Tuesday.  We were in a corner talking about the systemic failure of Congress and he suggested a bold new approach that starts with firing the entire Congress and starting over.  I told him he should blog the idea – and he did.
  • The Systemic Anomaly: Speaking of Systemic Anomalies, Eric Norlin takes a break from Defrag to watch The Matrix Reloaded and has an epiphany.  If you recall from the movie, "the systemic anomaly’s job, then, is to essentially “reboot” the whole system by choosing 23 humans to live and start over."  Eric explains how it applies to capitalism and the free markets.
  • How to be an Effective Contrarian: Fred Wilson explains that you should "Listen to everyone. Read everything you can. And then come to your own conclusions".  Yes!

I’m hopeful that on Wednesday everyone in the United States wakes up, eats a big breakfast, and gets on with life.