Successful startups struggle to cope with growth. Bloomberg LP was no exception. Stuart Bell, the company’s first salesperson, shared with me a story that captures a sense of that drama and urgency and helps explain Mike Bloomberg’s success. The tale...

Wall Street has long been denominated by men, but in at least one area women are leading: leveraging social media to garner visibility. Take four examples of women with the title of global investment officer or chief strategist: —Wei Li at Blackrock...

I met up with Pastor Gregory Fryer from the Immanuel Lutheran Church on the Upper East Side. Each week, Pastor Gregory puts out a stand on the corner of 88th and Lexington Ave and offers to dispense advice for a nickel. (Actually, he says he never takes...

Imagine a world where CEOs have AWS-style stats like quarterbacks. I recently met up with JJ Houldin, the co-founder and managing partner at Sift, an executive search firm, to talk about the brave new world of recruiting. JJ and I agreed that...

There’s been a dinner party revival in Manhattan in the past several years.  A have half a dozen friends who regularly host, sometimes in their homes and sometimes in restaurants. And I know of many more people who organize suppers.  I remember my...

Immigrant founders work on holidays. Or at least they network. I didn’t make it to the fireworks this past July 4th. Instead, I spent the holiday evening at a meetup for immigrant founders. Somya Gupta was one of the hosts of the event, which was held at...

We’ve known for some time that ChatGPT poses an existential threat to digital publishers. Some people think we appear to be closer to the end of that Cambrian extinction than the beginning based on data from Cloudflare. Last night, I attended an...

Dad organized his beach badge collection this weekend.  He’s been saving badges since my parents bought the shore house in Manasquan about sixty years ago. Recently, he decided we need to finish the project. For regular readers you understand the...

I met up with Frédérick Lavoie, co-founder of Deck. We each grabbed a coffee and sat under an awning at the Archer Hotel on 38th street. I persuaded him to flex so I could see the “Flinks” tattoo on his arm which he and his co-founder got after selling...

It was 2001 and I was working as the New York bureau chief at Bloomberg News. Mike Bloomberg had just appointed Peter T. Grauer chairman in anticipation of running for mayor. Peter saw me getting coffee in the food court and came over to introduce himself...