Comments on: An Honorable Run and American Power

By: The Need for Achievement « The Metamorphosis

The Need for Achievement « The Metamorphosis — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:39:34 +0000

[...] for Achievement I had a great conversation with Brad Feld today in the comments on his blog post: An Honorable Run and American Power. To keep things simple, i pasted it [...]

By: Billmosby

Billmosby — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:22:35 +0000

Ah, Keystone. I used to visit a lady who lived there. How do you find time to do anything indoors there? Also, are you one of the residents who tries to get a lawn going against the odds at that altitude, or do you just look at others' efforts along those lines with amusement?

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:34:04 +0000

Yeah – it’s often tough to stay indoors, but we manage to get a nice mix. We are only up here part of the time so we spend 0% of our time trying to have a lawn!

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:09:06 +0000

I have a hunch that VC's could improve their returns by becoming more expert in this topic. Not that they're not somewhat already; what I am saying is that this may be a relatively good use of marginal analysis time for a specific deal as compared to additional business environment analysis. (The problem I think is that this is much more difficult for and foreign to many VC's.)

By: @mattmireles

@mattmireles — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:51:21 +0000

There's the solo component too, at least for me: I didn't go into triathlons or start a company because all my friends were doing it. I did it because the idea of doing something really fucking hard is appealing, because I like to push my body (I used to fight forest forest fires on a hotshot crew), and because I think what I'm working on is gonna change how people use the web. That's just me, of course. But my guess is that most people end up there based on a similar decision matrix, as opposed to the "because it was cool" pathway that drives lots of other behaviors.

By: @mattmireles

@mattmireles — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:00:06 +0000

Funny how solo endurance sports and entrepreneurship attract the same kind of people. I think it has something to do with mental wiring: the endorphin rush that comes from beating back pain.

By: @reecepacheco

@reecepacheco — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:57:46 +0000

Excellent comment, Brad – very true in reads like Good to Great…

While 'success' is often measured by 'money,' I prefer to think of it as creating value in the world… as building something great… or more traditionally, as 'changing the world!'

By: @reecepacheco

@reecepacheco — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:53:02 +0000

Matt, you might also check out "Deep Survival" if you haven't read it already. I think you'll really like it for the adventure/sport survival aspect, but it all applies very well to business, but specifically startups.

By: @mattmireles

@mattmireles — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:24:53 +0000

Thanks dude!

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:18:04 +0000

The classic reference for this stuff is Ed Roberts (MIT Professors) book - Entrepreneurs in High-Technology: Lessons from MIT and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 1991). Here’s a link to Ed’s bio - http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_sps... />