It took until 2000 for all the states to recognize a day to observe and remember MLK. Reagan signed MLK Day into law in 1983. The difference of 17 years for all to recognize the day speaks to itself.

King’s activism for Civil Rights created a foundation for any of us to bring people …

We have all spent a ridiculous amount of time these past 10 months in our homes. We have created small communities for ourselves due to the pandemic. Our cities have struggled. Many have picked up and made moves to the suburbs or exurbs. How will all of these changes look when we get our get …

I have always been looking over my shoulder. Over the years, I have come to understand myself better so I get it. I have managed to keep that desire to give a peek and run at full speed tempered. I now take more time, go through several processes in my head, before really making sure …

We came back out east after a hot second in the city.  We have a cadence, and it works.  We leave at around 845am to drive back to the city, and it takes only two hours. On the way out, we leave at 1130am and stop at Katz’s to get a turkey sandwich to …

Net-A-Porter launched in 2000. I found it thrilling. What a smart idea of aggregating all of the designers online where I could go back all the time to see the latest and greatest. It was easier to find new merchandise there than going to a department store, particularly new designers.

I remember buying …

What is Jeff Bezos decided that in 2021 he would change the Amazon business model? Amazon would continue to be everything we love and hate about Amazon, but the model would shift for the employees.

Amazon employs more than a million people, with revenues topping around 300 billion. Amazon already has its own healthcare system …

I am going to take this straight out of David Lebovitz’s post today. Happy 2021. Happy to see 2020 in the rearview mirror. Let’s hope for happier days ahead.

What a long strange year it’s been. Closing the door on 2020 feels like a breath of fresh air. So much has happened this year it is difficult to recount the days. I remember skiing with some good friends reading about the virus in China and Europe knowing full well it would hit our …

I got up the Sunday after Xmas and had the house to myself. Everyone was sleeping and Fred was out getting breakfast goodies. I put on John Lennon’s Imagine.

Imagine there’s no heavenIt’s easy if you tryNo hell below usAbove us only skyImagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s …

There are countless towns that I have driven through wondering what were they like at different points of our history.

Over the last decade, the term “millennial” has become a verb. Each generation is impacted by the world around them. Politics, the economy, evolution, etc. It dictates how they live their lives.

Back in 2008 …

At one point in our past, the female role model was the perfect housewife. I just see The Dick Van Dyke Show in my head. Although, there was Rosemarie, so the pressure to show women in the workforce was slowly starting to change.

I have met so many incredibly smart women in the past 15 …

This time of the year is usually busy with parties, excitement, preparing for vacations and some family time. Instead, we have malaise.

I’m so bored. I don’t give a shit if you work l day or just sporadically. Life has become boring. I have gone through a variety of stages through COVID. There …

It is amazing how many people are living to be the ripe old age of 100. It is not as shocking anymore, it is becoming normal.

I took a socially distant walk with my friend and we noted that our grandchildren will live to be 100. Think about that. A world where we all live …

It definitely feels like we are coming to terms with the reality of our history when it comes to oppression, racism and segregation. Many have suppressed this for years by ignoring it and just painting over it. Eventually things crawl out of hiding. Many don’t want it to but you can’t move forward …

Hunger is a huge problem in this country and unfortunately getting worse.

A few years ago there were a bunch of people who launched companies where you could either sell or share the excess food that you had made for a meal. Conceptually a good idea. The issues came down to safety. The FDA is …

I am finally bingeing on The Crown. We had seen a few of the first episodes and never returned. When I read about the fourth season focusing on Diana and Charles, well I had to go back and see the whole thing through.

When I lived in London during college, I was obsessed with royalty …

It is starting to happen. The House voted to decriminalize cannabis. What happens when this gets to the Senate is up for grabs but this is a first step to a new mad mad cannabis world.

It was bound to happen and it’s about time. As Representative Hakeem Jeffries said, “Marijuana use is either …

We all have a relationship with money whether we want to or not. My relationship with money began at an early age. The knowledge that I could sell something and make money fueled my interests from a young age. Having my own cash to buy what I wanted made absolute sense. From lemonade stands to …

Change has been foisted upon us thanks to a worldwide pandemic. We are all acutely aware that we are living through a pandemic, one for the history books. Human beings, as a species, are quite adaptable, and the reality of what we are living through will not truly hit us until we get to the …

There is a variety of reasons and COVID is probably up there on the top but I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on my past. Moments that I remember. Unclear what I am going to do with these moments except write them down and spend time with them….and share.

When I …

This Thanksgiving is a strange one in a strange year. One that will be for the history books. It will a year where so much changed but right now nobody really knows what that is going to look like. There will be countless challenges ahead but history has shown us that we are resilient and …

I can see and feel the desire for many in NYC to have a place that they can get out on the weekends or until COVID ends. Certainly not everyone can afford that but for those who can it is a joy even though it is bad for NYC’s economy.

As work environments change …

Where did the notion that freedom means being able to walk around without a mask during COVID with an AK47 slung over ones shoulder?

In NYC if you are pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt you can receive a ticket and get up to three points on your license. 50% of drivers who are …

I went for my annual dermatologist appointment this year and had quite an animated conversation with the doctor.

Not shocking, it was about sunblock. Sunblock in every other country is formulated to block UV-A that causes melanomas, cancer etc. Only one ingredient, avobenzone, is “proven” to block UV-A sunlight. Why don’t we …

My parents got divorced when I was 15. Not pretty. The reality of the cash to divide hits hard. My Mom, who was one smart business woman was pretty much in the dark about their cash. She drilled it into me that I should never lose sight or control of the cash. I never have …

I have begun to breathe again. I also feel no need to check my Twitter feed incessantly. I am hoping for less anger, less nastiness and more positive conversations and that means more agreeing to disagree.

I saw on Twitter this week that Rahm Emanuel said that Biden should tell people laid off from JCPenney …

Has COVID slid women’s progress back? A few reports have shown that in fact less women are getting funded and the initiatives to get more women funded hasn’t exactly worked either.

I can answer all the why’s starting with the faces on the other side of the table. Most VC firms are …

Just because we have not heard any uproar from women across the country about sexual harassment these days, does not mean it is ok to slip back into old habits. Was it that some couldn’t keep it in any longer and decided to opt for the same lurid behavior on Zoom? Did that seem …

Today will be an anxiety ridden day. People are surging to the polls and that is how it should always be. Many states have opened the voting booths for weeks before today. That is how it should always be. The more people engaged, the better.

Each vote matters and we should all be given the …

Where do you want to be in 5 years might seem like a difficult question or even trite but if you know the answer then it is about figuring out the path.

I was watching an Amazon ad this past weekend noting all the happy people who get excited about shipping someone an item when …

When we first got to NYC we got acclimated by walking everywhere. It was love at first sight and we dove in. That meant going to museums, theater, parks, different neighborhoods and most of all the restaurants.

We would treat ourselves on birthdays and anniversaries and go to one of the top restaurants like Le …

My sister and I were talking about the voting lines. She articulated exactly what everyone should be thinking, she said “and this is the beacon of democracy? Make America Great again? This is not great.”

The lines over the weekend were utterly ridiculous across the country. Yet, the countless people who have waited in line …

Is the US finally having an awakening about our past? Women are finally running some of the top companies in the US. Could this be the moment when we make amends and educate ourselves so we can have a more equitable society? One thing is for sure, there is a lot of change taking place …

One of the joys of the startup world is that anything is negotiable and nothing is standard as long as there are legal documents backing it up. There are no rules.

Standing in Long Island City this past weekend, I couldn’t help but think about the Amazon deal. The amount of development in this …

The inability to be spontaneous is definitely missed but we made the most of our week with a bit of planning. Out to dinner, friends for dinner, museums, and more. For all intents and purposes, it was a regular week in NYC but the backdrop of the pandemic always looms.

Had lunch with one of …

Everyone has a story. All of our stories are different regardless of who we are, where we come from or the color of our skin. Some stories make major impacts in our lives, ones that we will never forget. There are the ones that we return to over and over again. To remember the emotional …

I have been reading Cool Hunting daily since it began in 2003. Long time reader. They do a great job of aggregating a few articles daily that I am interested in.

The other day I read this in the headline. 24 Potentially “superhabitable” planets discovered. All in capitals. Needless to say I read on. The …

At this point, unless you have completely withdrawn from social media, we all know change is happening beneath our feet. Of course, if you had deleted all your social media (not that I would blame you), well then, you would not be reading me.

The leaders in the stock market are shifting. It wasn’t …

I admit I am so glad that we are past that time in our lives where our kids aren’t in school. Many of our friends are spending a big part of their day making sure their kids are actually doing the work, and on Zoom. It is torture.

I am not dismissing the many …

I was having a conversation about need. It is a word I probably don’t use often. I can want many things but to need something is to be vulnerable. Need emphasizes something that is necessary or essential. Where want is a desire.

I have managed to be self-sufficient on multiple levels my entire …

On Sunday I turned 59. As my brother so elegantly pointed out “fucked-up crazy, right?”. For sure.

Decades are used to describe stages of our lives just like historical references. This is the last year of my 50th decade.

My twenties were about figuring out how to be an adult which means pay my …

Have mask will roam. You must carry a mask with you at all times. That is the simple rule but what is the etiquette?

I walked down to the beach this past weekend, and everyone who was coming the opposite direction politely put on their masks and stepped off the boardwalk for me to walk …

Michael Jordan exited at the top. Brilliant move. Perhaps human nature but if he had continued to play we would have remembered that he held on too long when it was time to bow out gracefully.

What happens to the long standing Republican Senators who have outlived their time? The ones who have stopped representing …

I was educated in the suburbs in a few of the top school districts in the country. I glided through school until my teen years. That is when my parents had a nasty divorce. My father, for as brilliant and over-educated as he is, didn’t really give a shit about our education. My …

The longer this pandemic goes on paired with everything else going on, the more I wonder how the hell did we get here?

I watched this documentary on mushrooms called Fantastic Fungi and wondered maybe nature is telling us something. We are living in the post of an accelerated thirty years of technology that has …

I am that Jew that goes once a year to the high holiday services. I am ok with it. We always acknowledge the holidays as a family with, of course, a meal. For Yom Kippur, some fast, others don’t. But we do have the annual dairy meal of bagels, kugel, lox and the spread …

Since COVID hit, the cap rates deals with retail have been lower. Everyone who wants a brick and mortar space is looking for a deal. Some landlords are making it work. More than likely those are the ones that actually own their properties and don’t have to deal with the bankers. Other landlords are …

The divided states of America.  That’s what my friend calls this country.  I’d take it one step further which is the divided people of America. Remember Rodney King when he said, “why can’t we all just get along?”

Jon Stewart said something the other day that I can’t get out of …

No doubt this is a strange year. We got back to NYC wondering what the city will feel like particularly our neighborhood.

We have lived in NYC since 1983. There was a 5-year move to the burbs for the one reason only which is we couldn’t really afford to live here. Most of …

Watching the food world reinvent themselves was bound to happen. For a restaurant to stay in business when they can only accommodate 25% of capacity is not a win. Some have attempted to do delivery but many of them are not set up to do that or have the true skills to do that. Creativity …

What life will be in the post-COVID world is slowly beginning to reveal itself. There are tiny little glimmers of change in every industry. The level of creativity in times of uncertainty is inspiring. Human beings are insanely resilient.

Companies have realized that working from home can be a lot but there is a …

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

For me, Labor Day marks the end …

There this attitude from Trump which is yeah there is COVID but fuck it.  I’m going to be fine so you will just deal with it.  

I’m walking thru Sag Harbor this week seeing everyone person in a mask.  Kids on skateboards have masks.  People shopping have masks.  Some in masks enter your …

How many people really believe that every one of the large companies that have gone bankrupt over the past year deserves to write off their debt and restart the brand?

Read between the lines, or perhaps ignore the lines. J. Crew forced the bankers to come to the table and forgive $1.6B in debt …

Fall is coming. We will be returning to the city. I am beyond excited to return. I know it will not be the city I left but to me, that is the opportunity.

My friend woke up the other morning thinking about how many billionaires live in NYC. If each of them gave $2m to …

Media is a business. If there was no controversy or the election and it was a slam dunk, then nobody would watch the news. Fox inflames their reporting of the news because it works for them. It really doesn’t matter if there is truth to what is told. The same could be said of …

We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world and we have no support system. It is time.

When COVID hit Europe, they locked down. Life has changed but things are pretty much back although the travel industry has suffered tremendously and that has rocked the economy. What is worth asking is what is …

Five months have passed since the day we all remember, the weekend of March 13. By Sunday, the 15th, we were on lockdown. So much has happened since then it feels like another time.

The one thing that nobody is certain of is how this pandemic rolls into a pending recession. What will that look …

When this is over and it will be at one point. The reality of what happened behind those white doors of the White House will all come out.  More than likely it will be worse than any of us imagined.

A house can be burned down in minutes but it takes months if not years …

The longer COVID-19 rages through our country, the longer it gives all of us the gift of rethinking everything. I stress the word gift because this is the silver lining. People in their 20’s and 30’s are thinking more than any age about how they want to live their lives vs how …

For those who read my blog, you know that I am in the midst of figuring out what comes next for myself. It is COVID and the world is weird so I am taking my time until I choose to quickly ramp. In all honesty, I don’t see that happening.

I have been talking …

I was talking with my brother this weekend.  We always have a chat about the world at large.  He said that the world was bubbling.  He’s right.  We aren’t at war but there is this strange feeling that feels like we in the midst of a war. 

Trump is losing his grip and …

Not surprising but I am thinking a lot about the future of restaurants. Emily recommended Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara Shopsin. A wonderful book that took me back to the days of life in Greenwich village when there was a bohemian community a bit different from the one we have today.

Tamara is the daughter …

Peloton made the rounds of several people I know, including my box, when they were looking for capital. I remember thinking that this is just another new-fangled piece of workout equipment that will sit eloquently in the corner and either collect dust or accumulate clothing.

I was wrong on that one. Timing can be …

So much needs to change. The buying and selling of companies at absurd valuations has never made sense to me. The majority of us work for some type of company even if we created the company ourselves. The responsibility to pay salaries, create an opportunity for growth, and have healthcare falls directly on the shoulders …

There are always good days and bad days. In the COVID world, the bad days just seem to be amplified. There isn’t a real reason why you wake up on the wrong side of the bed somedays but it just happens. It is so hard to wrap our arms around this invisible virus that …

So you graduate from college with debt. Keep in mind the loan is from the US Government. 

You move to a big city and take a job in the restaurant world to support your life while you write. 

Your parents breathe a sigh of relief because they can now afford to retire and be ok …

Speaking with students is probably my favorite thing to do. I was asked by a professor at the University of Georgia who teaches a course on early-stage funding if I would be willing to record a video for the class answering some questions.

We (my amazing team of two) did it this week. They …

photo from the New York TImes

Leadership would be nice. Remember the days when the Government was respected? We would all feel thankful, even if we didn’t agree, that the President would guide us. Wait, I think that was before I was born.

Last week the largest retailers finally realized that when we open …

I read this last week. During the pandemic, working mothers have reduced their hours spent working four to five times more than fathers, according to a new study. The trend is a troubling one for women’s career prospects after the crisis. New York Times. And then I read stats from multiple media outlets about …

Let’s be honest, we are all emotional wrecks right now even if we aren’t letting it all hang out.

I have been reading articles and books, listening to podcasts and movies, hanging out in Zoom rooms listening to events or conversations and the one thing that is missing is the emotional havoc that …

In the mid-90’s I began to get involved with politics within the tech community in NYC. I grew up around the kitchen table discussing the coming of WWIII but that is another story. Politicians were not only curious about this new industry but more than anything realized that we were all very early …

We continue talking about what the future will look like. No doubt we are all going to have to learn how to live again. The last decade climbed up a mountain at record speed. Then everything changed and the holes in the system that were gasping for air stopped breathing.

The road ahead will prove …

We lived in the east village for many years. B&H is an icon in the village. It is one of the many things I love about NY. A fun watch.

What we have learned during our time of lockdown is that those with young children are having the toughest time. Of course they are. If you work full time and are home with kids who were supposed to be in Zoom school or those with pre-school age kids, it has not been easy to …

In order to move forward, you have to understand where you came from. As a country, we have attempted to sweep a lot of our dark history under the rug. Those damn dust bunnies always seem to find their way out. At one point it is time, to be honest with ourselves and clean the …

As our kids and friends come back and forth from the city to the beach, the protocol is simple, get a COVID-19 test and get the results before you come out. That is how it should be across the country. Not only should we all be able to get a test with ease, for …

We are seeing people in different ways. We trust that they have been locked down and smart about navigating society. We can have dinner together at one of our homes, outside. We still don’t hug and kiss hello. I miss hugs and kisses.

I saw these gifs on my weekly email from California Sunday …

I loved a good craft project as far back as I can remember. I was about 13 when I took home economics and made a dress. I actually wore it to school (just once) even though it was far from perfect. I have never been one for exactness but have got a bit better with …

The longer I am out of NYC the more I crave it. The more I read about the protests, the changes coming from restaurants to the opening of the streets, and changing of the liquor licenses so you can walk around, the more I crave it. I have a burning desire to bear witness to …

I am thrilled to see VCs come out and commit to putting capital behind women and Black entrepreneurs. We can all hang our hats on this and champion change. But here’s the thing. Why do they need to create a separate fund for that? Why aren’t they each making a conscious decision in …

Life goes on even when everything goes upside down.

We are beginning to move forward into new phases of the virus wondering what is the new normal. I ran a bunch of errands yesterday donned in my mask of the moment and every time I do that I think how strange this all is.

Last …

There is so much change going on that it is hard to pinpoint where we are going? One thing is for sure, we are chartering new territories.

COVID-19 has pushed us all back on our feet and the numbers continue to rise, fall, and remain stable on different days in different locations around the …

There is something about Covid-19 that pulls and connects us even more to the friends and family around us. As crazy as these times are, the friend thing feels really good.

Last night for the first time since March 6th, we went out to a restaurant with friends. One of them was the first …

Fred asked if anyone in the commune had seen Cisco Kid? It was his fave show when he was about 7. Then I started chiming in with others like Josie and the Pussy Cats, Speed Racer, Scooby-Doo, and the Jetsons. Hanna-Barbera were genius.

How women were depicted in those shows that I glued …

These days more than ever we need role models. There have been too many female founders who have built their businesses with a lot of bravado. They have taken to the social media airwaves creating a brand for themselves and their companies.

Too many of these women have taken an unattractive tumble. It pains me …

I have not been out protesting but our daughters have. They are seeing their communities come together. People aren’t in offices so they are able to come out on the streets and rally together. It is exhilarating to just watch.

Landlords must rally around the community. It is time to rethink commercial leases on …

The protests are amazing.  The changes that politicians are now expected to take have been swift. They hear it.  The people are pissed off and want change. Changes in the police system are the protests right now but there is much more in those voices. They want fundamental shifts in how our country is run …

When a foundation cracks, the chances are that everything around it will eventually crumble. That is exactly what the world feels like now. Although our leadership across the globe has significantly deteriorated, people around the globe are joining people on the streets in solidarity to protest.

The foundation has been built by mostly white men …

If you have not seen this clip of Elmo’s father explaining to Elmo what a protest is and why people are protesting, watch it. It is so good.

CNN and Sesame Street came together to help kids understand what is happening. It also helps families talk to their kids.

I grew up watching Sesame …

I spoke to a female founder from Senegal this past week. A few times a month I find emails that pique my interest or inspire me and I set up the asked call.

This young woman who one of the 30 Senegalis to graduate from Harvard. I figured I might be able to give her …

Our house at the beach does not have mailboxes. If we want to get USPS then you need to get a PO Box. We had one when the kids were campers for their letters. I’d come back each summer after not using the box for 8 months and find the box filled with tons …

The pandemic has shown America’s cracks in our system but racism has exposed all of America’s flaws down to its core. We have reached a boiling point thanks to Trump fueling the fire and our streets have finally exploded. It was bound to happen. Colin Kaepernick took the knee it was peaceful yet …

Is it actually possible to have total privacy on the web? There have been very few times when I have done a search for someone and I come up with nothing. I admit I do not applaud that but it freaks me out.

So what is privacy? Can there be privacy anymore? Do we want …

I am longing for a personal car wash. The first time I had a pedicure was the night before my wedding. It was a revelation. Within a few years there was a nail salon on every other corner in NYC.

Personal grooming began in the Stone Age. The biggest advances kicked into gear during the …

Today is a day to remember the soldiers who have fought for our freedom. The ones who gave their lives no matter what state they came from to be part of the armed forces so our lives as we know it can continue.

I am going to spend today thinking about the 100,000 people …

Last weekend we watched Scott, Jessica’s boyfriend, graduate from his masters program at Columbia University. All graduates this year were certainly not able to experience the pomp and circumstance that we have all been accustomed to.

The bright side was the intimacy of the event. He didn’t have to find himself scrambling through …

I have written time and time about the fashion industry because I was in it and on both sides, retail and wholesale. One of the KPI’s has always been about making your numbers. You want your gross numbers to be higher every day than the year before. That is one of the many reasons …

There is an entrepreneurial spirit is in all of us. How many times have you heard people around the table say “I have a great idea”? Ideas, as we know, are a dime a dozen, the ones that execute on those ideas are in a class all by themselves.

The shifts coming out of the …

We have settled in with our kids and friends on the east end of Long Island. It took some time to enter the commune as they have been settled in since mid-March. We just arrived in early May.

One on hand I am so angry and aghast at how we go to this point …

We are all sick of being locked down. Does anyone enjoy that little bit of angst seeing friends from a social distance? Certainly wearing masks and gloves is something that has never been high on my “to do” list. I particularly enjoy washing my hands so many times a day that my hands are constantly …

First week was crazy. The second week was a lot more mellow and by week number six or is it seven (?) I am happy to let my mind wander. The social shifts in urban areas are very pronounced. They are social cities where people go out to dinner, go to the theater, go to museums …

What does it take to hit our country over the head to see the deep equity divide that has bubbled to the top through COVID-19? Let’s break down who is suffering and who is not.  Data, please.  Here is one fact.  There is a shitload of cash flowing through the private markets and …

When cracks start to appear in broad daylight it’s time to repair them. That applies to everything. Many industries are waking up. They are realizing those cracks that they believed could be ignored are now too exposed.

Meatpacking companies, the underbelly of the gig economy, and hourly labor are showing those signs. Jeff Bezos …

We made the big move back to the East Coast where our kids are. Just being here has relieved our anxiety tremendously.

It’s calm and eerie in Amagansett too. The chances of getting Covid-19 here vs Venice are a tad lower because it is not city life. Although everyone we know behaves by …

Who has worn the same pair of pants for the last week? Or maybe you have worn the same t-shirt? I remember when I was pregnant with Jessica pretty much wearing the same pants so often that the guy I was working with asked me to burn them before I returned after maternity leave …

I was on a call talking about the future with some super-smart women. All in different spaces from fashion to food to philanthropy in the medical space. The last question of the night was “what do you want to keep when this ends?”

Each of us is experiencing different anxieties from life being interrupted …

We just witnessed a serious amount of cash go to building brands at all costs until they figured out how to get customer acquisition costs down to the point where the business could be profitable. Not the smartest business model but it seemed to be working.

Now we are witnessing some brands now explode without …

The life of control, entitlement, and elitism need to stop.  Trump is giving money to the coal industry?  Many industries should have ceased to exist a long time ago and now is the opportunity to shift to the future not hold on to the past.

I want to see more leaders rise who are in …

I have been writing about the demise of retail for some time. The lack of imagination, the massive amount of inventory, the shitty experience, and the inability to look into the future and rethink the model. Everything new that has opened up over the last few years looks just like stores in the 1980s. Then …

I read a great quote this weekend.  We are in an FDR moment and we don’t have an FDR. Scary and true but we will rise out of the ashes as we have before.  Our nation is still quite young compared to the rest of the world.  

In the last decade, the amount of …

I asked someone how they were doing and the response was emotionally solid and physically pretty good. Then someone else sent me a thoughtful email about their mindset and asked me what is my mindset.

I am not clear what my mindset is. Getting stir crazy. Thinking a lot about the sociological impacts of the …

Human contact is the biggest miss. Zoom works but it is not the same thing as seeing someone in person. Whether you are introverted or extroverted, being in the presence of someone is like food. We all need it.

What I truly miss is the art of a conversation. There is so much chatter over …

I spoke to an investor yesterday who told me that the slew of smart deals she is seeing with incredible teams is inspiring. Entrepreneurs who are reflecting on their ideas, their business models and thinking about the future. Even better is that the amount of money they want to raise including the valuations that are …

Last night we watched Emma. For context, Jane Austen wrote Emma in 1815. A time when people wore layers of clothing, the wealthy were landowners, everyone talked in circles, and romance was a game.

It is hard to not to look at everything with a lens on the future. Each generation shifts just a bit …

At one point there are bound to be lawsuits. I read that some guy who owns a golf course in Pennsylvania sued the state of Pennsylvania for closing down his right to keep open because the Government should not be involved in any part of our life. Well if he looked around he would see …

In the last week, it has become apparent to most of us that we are in lockdown for a while. How it ends is unclear but life will not return back as quickly as life changed to get here. The return to something else will happen over time and all of a sudden it will …

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We all knew that our healthcare system was teetering but didn’t think it was in total shambles. One of the many things this pandemic has done is open up the reality of how utterly insecure our foundation is.

Many hospitals have closed over the past decade. They are expensive to run because the …

The first episode of my podcast Positively Gotham Gal aired in November of 2016. The podcast was conceived as an evolution of something I had been doing on my blog since November 2010, a weekly post called ‘Women Entrepreneur Mondays’. These blogs were transcribed interviews and stories I wrote about a specific woman and the …

When we peak behind the curtain of companies that appear to be on a rocket ship to discover the culture is a nightmare it is disturbing.  Particularly when the founders are females because there are not enough of us.

 Culture should be a priority.  And today it is more important than ever.  For the amount …

Fred and I basically lived together when we first met. I lived across the hall from him my Sophomore summer in a Boston brownstone on the top floor in one of the fraternities at MIT. There were two singles and I lived in one of them and a girlfriend from college lived in the other …

Data is the most essential information to make decisions and see through the weeds. The mixed messages we are getting from the WH, CDC, and everything in between is insanely frustrating.

So, I asked my doctor. They have not truly figured out the virus yet but here are some interesting stats she gave me.

How …

We are locked and loaded in Los Angeles. Thank god I still adore my husband.

There are many benefits to being out in LA during the winter months and the obvious one is the sunshine. We also have friends and family out here so our annual journey is one for spending time and reconnecting.

I …

At this point, we are all in some type of lockdown mode. Amazing how different 5 days feels now. The only thing I can compare this to is 9/11 but then we could at least go out although numb and engage. Also going downtown after Hurricane Sandy felt very apocalyptic or like being in …

In the last few days of social distancing, we watched the Hillary doc on Hulu and Bombshell, one of the few movies we missed in the theater this year.

Whether you like Hillary or not, she is an incredibly brilliant woman who has been treated completely differently because she is not a man. The long …

Unionizing seems to have a new mission to represent workers in the tech industry. There is an underlying fear that more companies might find themselves having to work with unions. They should be worried because what exactly do these unions represent except equal pay for equal jobs regardless of your experience with salary caps around …

Will coronavirus be the turning point in changing our world to a better place?

Let’s be honest, we are all a bit freaked out over the coronavirus even though you want to just lead your lives but be smart. It is another dose of the last three years. It is the icing on the …

I love word games. I could get super lost in them and be perfectly content.

I remember when Zynga began in 2007. It was the first company that really figured out the next game industry. First computers and then the new frontier of our phones. Putting these games on Facebook sealed the deal. That was …

Perhaps a day late but I spent the day thinking about International Women’s Day and what it means. History here is important. The UN began this day in 1975 to celebrate women’s’ rights and world peace. In 1977 member states were invited to declare March 8th International Women’s Day.

The media amplifies …

The life cycle of a restaurant is tough. The data is that 90% of restaurants fail in their first year. 5 years is the average life span.

We have been invested in restaurants so I understand the numbers. But hospitality is more than numbers. It is also about creating a vibe, serving up good food …

I read that a bookkeeping change at the Department of Education would cut off financing to rural schools. 800 schools will lose thousands in Federal dollars. Why would we do that?

The people that will bear the brunt of this are people barely keeping their heads above water. They can’t afford to live in …

Erving Goffman considered to be one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century had a theory around the terms “front stage” and “back stage”.

The “front stage” is how one engages in behavior when they know others are watching. The “back stage” is what we do when nobody is looking. I have witnessed …

I can’t count the amount of times founders who are not white men have said to me, “I know that if I was a white man that I would have already raised this money and be in a very different place”. What kills me is that I know that it is true too.

Can …

I rarely watch TV. It is one of those things that I just gave up. It happened over time. When I was a kid, I was a TV person for sure. Loved all the shows. When I had kids, I stopped watching shows except of course for Rug Rats and Doug. The last weekly episodes …

For a first time founder, this is not easy. Sure there are the touted SAFE docs from YC because it makes life easy but building a business is not easy. To me, SAFE documents, are about as good as the paper they are written on.

The questions from first-time founders range from valuation, board …

All women are different. Some find it easier than others to navigate the male world that we live in. Some aren’t comfortable playing the game.

Let’s start with the simple fact that women can have children and men can not. I talk to so many young women who are navigating their 20’s …

Does the system we have built make sense today? I was walking around Williamsburg and Greenpoint this week and began to think about massive change. I noticed a few buildings that had been upgraded with new retail spots inside. They reflect today’s architectural culture. Looks good.

People tend to hold on to the past …

I am loving the winter life in LA and Utah but when I got back to NYC these past few days for a quick NY fix, I realize how much I love that town. Sipping martinis with my dear friend at Toqueville, a spot where you can hear and get a seat at the bar …

I could go on and on about a multitude of issues that are anxiety-driven starting with William Barr but I won’t. What is the scariest thing right now is the Coronavirus, now called 2019-nCoV.

Is the US equipped for something like this? It appears that China is not although they are quite …

Most institutional investors have a financial thesis. They invest in what they know best. The verticals can change and they often do when certain industries start to amplify. Sustainability is definitely the in buzz word category these days. That is a very very good thing.

What inevitability takes place is that people try to build …

I have been keeping up to date on the Harvey Weinstein trial. 27 witnesses have testified. These brave women have sat in the witness chair often losing their composure having to recall the abuse. There seems to be no real physical evidence but essentially it appears to be these women’s words against his. I …

In my head, I am still young. Not young like 16 but young like my 30’s where I had the ability to just plow through anything although that continued for a few decades. I could always fill each day with more things that most would consider not humanly possible but for me, it was …

Something obvious is easily understood or self-evident where oblivious is not being aware or concerned about what is happening around us.

The best entrepreneurs have to have a balance of both. They see the obvious when nobody else does but can be oblivious to everything else such as culture, valuation, people around their table …

As the 2020 year of Sundance wraps up, the organization just announced a new female director, Tabitha Jackson. The past director, John Cooper, had been in that role for 30 years. He is moving on. The impact he made was huge.

What is worth noting is that a very good friend of mine who is …

Back in the 90s I still recall the aha moment a group of senators had when they understood email spam. It is wrong for everyone except themselves.

You go to one political event, support one politician and within hours you are getting an email from every one of that party running for office. It is …

You have to look back to remember how we lived, how we connected, how much we knew about the world at large and how much has changed including the speed of information.

The upsetting information about the way the death of Kobe Bryant this past week came to our phones within minutes of the helicopter …

Today I hope that many of us reflect on Martin Luther King and the movement he began. As we remember the legacy of a man whose name defines civil rights and non-violence.

As a nation, in the post-Obama era, the anger and hatred that has erupted in the Trump era are astounding, unfortunate …

There is a scene in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women when the publishers’ young daughters find the manuscript Little Women and confront him about the rest of the book because they can hardly wait to read it. Oh, and he better publish it. He has this aha moment and realizes there is an opportunity there …

How far have we come, are we there yet when it comes to equality is a question I am frequently asked. I always answer the same response. The fact that we are talking about it means things have changed. Ends up the data is starting to shift too as women are starting to outnumber men …

I read Shoe Dog, Phil Knights’ memoir on how and why he built Nike quite a while ago but always recommend it. Those were the days when the only way to raise capital to grow your business was the local bank.

Remember when banks supported the local business community with bank loans. You would come …

At the end of the year, there are so many lists and conversations about resolutions, change, and of course, we are moving into a new decade.

This popped into my feed on 12/30.

Pope Francis urged us to talk to each other during meals instead of using our phones, per Reuters.

Jesus, Mary and …

I have sat on countless boards. Each has such a different dynamic. Some of them are extremely productive while others are just checking the box.

Running a company is so multi-layered and managing your board is just one piece. You want people on your board where each is just a sum of the whole …

As the year winds down I have been thinking about the end of the decade, the last year and the year ahead.

I asked Emily what her New Years’ resolutions were this year. Hers are very specific and obtainable. Things she would like to accomplish and knowing her she will. I used to have similar …

We had lunch with a successful entrepreneur the other morning. He is super smart and data-focused so he is doing his own personal diligence on what makes a good long term relationship. He was curious about the success of Fred and my relationship. After all, we have been together for almost 40 years. How …

Regardless of what holiday you celebrate this season, Christmas is a day for cheer. Many years we did two movies and Chinese food, others we had a big family Christmas and these days we find ourselves skiing with family and friends.

Whatever you are doing today, enjoy the day.

There are countless wonderful things about having children. I couldn’t even begin to name all of them. Seeing the world through my children’s eyes pushes me to think differently in every aspect of my life.

Fred wrote a post a few weeks back about having kids. Someone commented that there should be a …

Managing stress is not easy. Everyone goes about it differently. If you are a founder, the stress overload including lack of sleep and 24/7 focus is overwhelming.

MIT’s entrepreneur accelerator decided to prioritize entrepreneurs’ individual well-being and measure the effects. Over 12 weeks, entrepreneurs were taught tools for greater self-awareness through …

The last night I was in New York City before heading out west, I walked by the Spotted Pig and it was empty. At one point you couldn’t get into the place for hours on end. It was a special spot. Turns out it was more than that.

In 2004, Momofuku Noodle bar opened …

Everyone loves slamming Amazon and I get it. They take huge fees from the companies on their site and don’t care. They have made it extremely difficult to compete without a super-strong brand in eCommerce. You can have a shop on their site but it is “amazonish” looking and screws your bottom line …

There seems to be such an immense force to build a direct to consumer product business quicker than the cadence of the business. Always so many moving parts in any business and some times it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The stakes get higher at each round. Having an expert engineering team who gets …

Growing up I always had a head for business. Just how my brain worked. My first store was on the front lawn of our house when I was 4 or 5. An upside-down playpen filled with a few puppies that our dog had next to a small table of lemonade. Puppies were all gone …

It is really hard to decipher how the economy is doing. Is it really doing good for everyone? Numbers are fungible so who is breaking down the different sectors to see how everyone is really doing?

Are we really creating jobs in the tech sector for high school students who choose not to go to …

We are back in LA earlier than usual as we move into a house project that is one for the records. This one definitely put us under the “gluttons for punishment” category. When the waiting is over, you soon forget the angst getting there.

In our first apartment, we had no furniture except a cotton …

I have spent some time in the past year as a patient in the world of healthcare. It is not a fun place to be. Every time I step my toe into that world of appointments, insurance, new doctors, old doctors, and costs, I come away thinking about how the hell do we fix this …

Who pays for USPS when they don’t deliver the package, hold it in the back and then send it back to the shipper? Since I have never been billed for that experience and quite sure the shipping company does not either then I would guess it comes right off of USPS’s bottom line …

The congestion in cities is crazy. Friends who live outside of NYC have stopped bringing their cars in and have begun taking the train. That is a good thing. It means that something is working.

Due to the work on the subway lines, the city made a decision to close 14th Street to cars. Buses …

As cities become wealthier, housing becomes a huge problem. What is the future of housing going to look like? And more importantly, what should it look like?

The high-end housing market is over-saturated in NYC. It is only time until that market starts to shift because banks will want their capital back on …

I have been noticing that in every doctor’s office, hospital office and airport that the hanging TV providing us with background noise is always Fox News. Why?

Fox is spewing out an agenda that is not exactly neutral journalism. NYTimes, WSJ, Washington Post all have their own slant but they do not spew made …

I met with Lisa Hickey this past week, who is a reader and commenter on this blog. Always great to put the face with the name. She is the CEO and publisher of the Good Men Project.

We walked about a lot of things before she headed off to Philly to meet with a group …

Growing up nobody wore a seat belt. I remember lying around in the back of our station wagon with my brother and sister just rolling from one end to the other. It was not until 1968 that all vehicles (except buses) were required to have seat belts.

It is a state by state law requiring …

Men seem to extremely confident in what they have to say. It seems to start at an early age. Women are such different animals vs their male counterparts. How we communicate our knowledge, make decisions, manage people, climb to the top, engage with people and more. The response to this, of course, is “no shit …

I got an email from a Wesleyan graduate about Pedro Venture, who graduated from Wesleyan in 2010. I did not know him but all of our kids went to Wesleyan so it wasn’t surprising to get the email.

The graduate reached out because Pedro was attending a wedding in North Carolina. He was at …

Change never comes from inside. Change always comes from outside. In the next decade, we will see a much-needed change in the medical space.

The system is not working so well. The costs are sky-rocketing. Insurance is far from pro-active but instead defensive. When you get sick it is there although not …

When did raising $2-3m become a seed round? More than likely when the market became happy to bear it. To me, that sends a signal with red flags written all over it called the peak of the market.

Seed is super high risk. Seed means that there is not any true product-market fit …

While on vacation we talk a lot about the future but we also recall the past. I was talking to Fred about the frustrations I had as a young mother in the last company I ever worked for and he suggested I write about what happened.

Emily was not even a year old when we …

In NYC when something new opens, the crowds come to look. The question is how long will the crowds continue?

The complete ugly abomination of architecture at Hudson Yards is such a complete stain of awfulness on the west side of NYC that the developers should be heavily fined and the city administrators who signed …

What is the value of just a name? From the winning bidder, Authentic Brands Group, it appears to be $270 million. Unfortunately, the other bidder who wanted to rethink the entire company including brick and mortar did not win although the ink is not yet dry. The articles written about the downfall always points to …

An incredible trip on multiple levels. Until thirty years this area of the world lived under the heavy hand of the Soviet Union. Each city is still figuring out its bearings. There is different feeling of awakening in each place.

Few things. Martinis can only be had in Prague. Not sure why. James Bond would …

In the first semester of my junior year of college, I went to school in London. It was an epic experience on multiple levels. After the semester ended, I went with a friend for about 3 weeks around Europe with a Europass.

We stopped in Munich. One of the days we went to Dachau. I …

I have written about this before. Non-profits such as museums and parks have to start to think about how they can be an organizations that at least can break even. The slog of raising huge sums of money every year to stay afloat is just not sustainable.

As pressure grows from the crowd organizations …

This past week Melinda Gates committed $1b to expand women’s power and influence in the United States…to empower more women. The times have changed and there seems to be a window of opportunity to keep the momentum going when it comes to more women in the workplace, more women being treated equal to …

I am a huge fan of technology. Interactive games, the ability to build something from scratch on Scratch, entertainment on planes are all different forms of education.

Too many times I see parents using technology as a distraction to make their lives easier too often. Too many parents walking with their kids or pushing a …

Big ideas have turned into big companies and in turn have disrupted a handful of spaces. Many of these companies have not only changed how we shop or live or work but they have raised so much money for concepts that are not proprietary.

The cash has allowed all of them to be first to …

Remember Ozzie and Harriet? Ozzie would come home from work in his suit and say “honey I’m home” and Harriet, who looked picture perfect with a clean house and something cooking in the oven would obediently lean over for a kiss. Don’t forget she had her kitchen apron on. Thank god those days …

Money is complicated. You need it to survive, to pay the rent or the mortgage, buy food, have healthcare, pay for college, clothes, books…basically life.

My bank account has been overdrawn where a credit card was handy although that creates an entire other issue of problems. My bank account has also found itself in …

My first job out of college was working for Macy’s. I was placed in Kings Plaza Brooklyn to run the cosmetic department. I had never set foot in that area of the world until then. We explored all parts of Brooklyn including a few weekends at Rockaway Beach in the summer months. A magical …

For many years I have written a post at the end of each summer about where my head is at. There is something about summer that always gives me time and space to think about next chapters. The beginning of fall is my new year.

Over the past couple years I have been working on …

Most sane people want comprehensive guns laws with the hope that we can deter gun violence. Certainly it is one step towards awareness because young anger is rampant.

It is quite obvious that the people we have elected are incapable of getting anything passed for change. Tit for tat and the inability to come across …

Flicking through twitter this week someone who reads this blog had @ me with a link to a blog post written by Dana Wright, a VC with an powerful career before she got to the venture world. The title is “The Children Question”.

Dana shares her own personal experiences around children and gives advice on how …

Sending our children to a school where art is treated as important as history or english or even math was important to us. It was also a gift to out kids because unfortunately art has been cut out of so many curriculums. But the reality is although art might or might not be part of …

Most parents would be thrilled if their kids returned to where they grew up to raise their families. How do rural states keep the kids from leaving permanently?

STEM education is a growing part of the curriculum across the country. Seeing pictures of kids in rural areas of Iowa on computers creating projects with huge …

I am seeing these beautiful ads for Nordstrom celebrating their opening on 57th and Broadway in October. Women wearing extremely stylish clothing that is very much urban chic. Will Nordstrom create a NYC store with unique inventory or will it carry the same stuff in their suburban stores?

Department stores have long standing roots in …

Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Everyone has their own career and personal aspirations particularly founders who are trying to hit a home run but base hits can be a win too.

In 2007, I started spending the majority of my time angel investing. 120 investments later and a few …

Technology has been the guiding light of change for the past 25 years. Fred and I have had a front seat. Our kids participated too in how the new tools of today are completely integrated of their everyday lives. That includes certain apps and the ease of commerce.

Twenty-five years ago a small CD …

About 6 years ago we were in Berlin on the roof of SoundCloud’s offices overlooking the sun setting on the city having drinks and food. There were only about 50 people in the company then although my memory might not be crystal clear but I do remember an entrepreneur who was building a company …

In the summer, the big donor money raising for candidates is a meet and greet event at houses located in vacation spots. Today there is a big fundraiser for Donald Trump in Southampton put on by Steve Ross. The Washington Post reported that tickets are priced at $100,000 for a photo opportunity and lunch …

Politics has always been a big part of our kitchen table. That conversation is a bit escalated these days. What we are all dismayed at is the lack of leadership from the DNC. Why are they not providing a message that is consistent and on point with compelling content?

You don’t have to look …

Every board is different. I have sat on early stage, a bit later stage, education and non-profit boards. All with different casts of characters that are meant to be responsible and represent the companies interests. Thinking about what your board should look like is an important reflection on what each company should be.

Darren …

The rumbling of women is at full roar. I am can’t pinpoint when the tsunami began because it has been more of a snowball gathering up steam and size rolling down the hill.

#MeToo and #Timesup is part of the ripple effect but it wasn’t the start. Women in their 20’s and …

How does someone become so hateful of others because of the color of their skin, a different way of raising their families and living their lives, their ideals and values or their religion?

In this case entitlement, arrogance, narcissism and intellectual insecurity. You can only hit someone so many times before they do something. There …