4th of July

This year's 4th of July was one of he best in recent memory. We spent it with family up on Lake St. Clair so it was filled with boating, kayaking, and eating freshly caught fish.

More than just a good, relaxing time, this year's 4th was especially significant given the recent landmark Supreme Court decision on marriage equality. Although I'm generally not very political on this blog, I have been an advocate for marriage equality for years. Katie and I even discussed not getting married ourselves because it didn't seem fair that we should be able to do so while some people were not.

The news of the Supreme Court decision came in while I was in the security line at the airport. The couple behind me was reading the headlines from their mobile phones out loud and I was floored. I hadn't even realized that such a big decision was due so it completely surprised me. I couldn't help it; I actually wept a little right there in line.

I'm not sure why this issue has moved me so much. I'm not gay myself. I don't have that many openly gay friends or family. So it doesn't affect me in a deeply personal way. Rather, it just seems fair and right.

I get that some people don't agree with it for religious reasons, but our country is not a theocracy. If we're going to afford legal and tax benefits to one set of couples, we need to afford them equally to all. Otherwise it seems not only legally discriminatory but, worse, psychologically abusive: "These people over here are OK. You are not." This decision sends a message of compassion and openness - rather than judgment and governmental control - which are values I hold.

I feel more patriotic than I have in years not because I agree with the decision, but because I feel like our system of government really did something right. In recent years I've found myself more and more apathetic about politics as I have become increasingly cynical that our political leaders do anything more than posturing. This court ruling has really re-energized me into believing that our country is able to progress with the times.

Moreover, I'm really happy that our country is asking - and trying to answer - hard questions. Clearly we are a country that is still trying to figure out where it stands on such issues. We have just allowed for one man to marry another man (by a very slim 5-4 margin, hardly unanimous), claiming that, "Love is love." But, if a man wants to marry his cousin, for example, that is not allowed. "Love is love" isn't quite so simple. We (at least in media) rapidly accepted Caitlyn Jenner when she identified with a different gender, but we also vilified Rachel Dolezal when she identified with a different race.

Where do we stand? Where are our boundaries? As a society, what do we think is OK and what do we think we have no right to judge whether it is OK or not? I think it's fine that we don't have all of the answers but I'm glad that we're asking the questions. The answers we come up with today might be different than the answers we provide decades from now - they are certainly different than our answers of decades ago. I think it's key for a well functioning democracy to question itself constantly.

So, congratulations to my friends and loved ones who can now enjoy the benefits of marriage with their loved ones, congratulations to the US women's soccer team on a very convincing World Cup victory, and congratulations to the USA on another birthday. I am feeling very good about the USA today - God bless America!

Economic Inequality in America

Recently I've been seeing many facebook posts about a video describing the very lopsided distribution of wealth and income in the United States. The video is actually a year old but it has been given a new lease on life by upworthy and, at the time of this post, has more than 10,000,000 views.

The basic arguments of the video are:
* The US has very unequal distribution of wealth and income.
* Over time, wealth and income distribution is becoming more unequal.
* Most Americans aren't aware of how unequal and increasingly unequal wealth and income are in the US and they would prefer them to be more equitably distributed.

This has made for some good and spirited discussion among my friends. Many of my socialist-leaning European friends believe that it's a great travesty and that Americans are either ignorant about it happening or wrong in willfully letting it happen. Many of my libertarian-leaning American friends believe that it's a right and natural outcome of a meritocratic free market.

Regardless of the video and the data sources and the definitions it uses, I'm glad it has stimulated this discussion because it's not something I've really thought much about before. It leaves me with several questions:

* Is US wealth and income distribution as inequitable as the video makes it seem?
* How does the US compare with other countries? (The US looks OK in this World Bank data.)
* What should the US wealth and income distribution look like - and why?
* Is this even the right question? I've seen it argued that wealth and income mobility (the ability for someone in one group to move up to another group) is more important than a snaptshot or trend of distribution. This resonates with me as it seems to align with the American dream: that anyone, no matter where he comes from or what he has today, can make it big tomorrow.
* If mobility is the right metric to focus on, how does the US stack up there? (Not too well, it would seem from this Wikipedia article.)
* Or are there other metrics we should look at for an ideal future state and work backward from there?
* If indeed the US is out of whack with regard to the metrics we claim to hold dear, why is that so? And what can or should be done about it? What other approaches exist and what would be their tradeoffs?

What do you think about these issues? I don't have any conclusions of my own yet as I'm just starting to consider them.

Some Memorial Day Thoughts

Memorial Day is always a good day for reflection and gratitude - for grieving the ones we've lost and for celebrating what they did for us in their time on this earth. As I've posted before, it is a particularly poignant time for my family as it was 23 Memorial Days ago that we lost my dad after a 10+year fight with cancer.

This 23rd Memorial Day is especially significant for remembering Dad - and not only because 23 is my favorite number! Dad was born January 23, 1945. When I was born March 23, 1979, Dad was 34 years and two months old. Guess what age I turned a few days ago: 34 years and two months . . .

It's a bit mind blowing to think of myself as the same age as my father when he and my mom brought me into this world. The image of him fixed in my mind is always one of an older/wiser/sterner parent - which is hard to reconcile with the notion of him as a hypothetical peer.I'm spending the day listening to his old records and playing his old pinball machines.

And while I do focus a great deal on him each Memorial Day, I also take plenty of time to reflect on my gratitude to those who have died while putting themselves in harm's way for our country. It is humbling to think of how little I've risked or sacrificed relative to them. It always leaves me with a sense of duty and purpose that I must do everything I can to ensure they didn't die in vain. I must be the best I can be - as a person, as a professional, and as a citizen.

So thank you, fallen patriots; I'm trying to live up to your example.

US Cleantech Energy Policy => #fail

A recent post by Battery Ventures VP Mike Dauber on the Obama administration's challenge to cleantech entrepreneurs generated some discussion among my friends and colleagues. One point of focus was whether or not this really is our "Sputnik moment" and, if so, whether the race to the Moon was really worthwhile anyway.

Responding to this point first, any reader of my blog will know how strongly I feel about our successful efforts to put a man on the moon. Aside from all of the economic benefits the follow-up to this program yielded, the greatest benefits were less tangible. JFK's challenge inspired a nation (the world?), galvanizing us to achieve a nearly impossible goal in a nearly impossible time frame. And the nation responded with the very best of its capabilities. Nearly 50 years later, the race to the Moon still inspires at least this engineer / entrepreneur / leader and, I suspect, many more.

That said, saying that cleantech is our new Moon race doesn't make it so. I look around me and it definitely doesn't feel like a Moon race. Some of the nation is divided about whether cleantech efforts are valuable but most of the nation is blissfully ignorant about what cleantech even means. I wasn't alive during the Moon race, but I believe that it captivated the nation almost entirely. Those who were alive, feel free to contradict me. So my first response to the administration's attempt to paint cleantech innovation as "the new Sputnik moment" is: #fail. It will take real leadership to inspire that kind of moment, not a few soundbites in a few speeches.

Now, when it comes to evaluating this post and the White House policy that it references, I can't claim to be objective because I am professionally right in the thick of it. Objective or not, though, I'll tell you exactly what I think.

The stated policy to use government funds to incent cleantech innovation is, at best, ineffective and, at worst, intentional BS that just pays lip service to a current "buzz" topic. As Dauber pointed out in his blog, almost all government funding goes to university / research labs where they work on multi-year / multi-decade cycles and are completely insulated from commercial outcomes. The result: technologies that may pay off in 20+ years and may or may not ever be economically viable.

There is also a great deal of stimulus money going to large, established companies to deploy existing (and often outdated) technologies in the name of cleantech. This includes smart meter deployments and solar installations. While this is a little bit more helpful because it produces results in the here and now (and helps some companies move a little further along the scale curve), it does nothing to foster innovation, it lets large companies live temporarily in a capitalist fantasy world (in which their products / services are paid for by an irrational consumer) - which doesn't actually help them in the long run - and, most importantly to me, it does absolutely nothing to incent / motivate/ support small business entrepreneurs. Of course, fostering small business entrepreneurship is another alleged goal of the administration since these organizations are the source of so much job growth but, if that really is the goal, put your money where your mouth is.

So where does that leave the cleantech entrepreneur? Looking for capital from traditional private sources: VCs, etc. That sounds well and good except that the VCs aren't investing much in early stage cleantech deals. There is lots of great PR about the $4B invested last year in cleantech - that sounds great! When you dig deeper, though, the vast majority of this is mezzanine (late-stage) investment in companies that are already quite mature (relative to new startups) and project finance (e.g. financing the construction of a wind farm).

So you have cleantech entrepreneurs like me, with a market-validated concept that is so much more than just green for green's sake. Smart Office Energy Solutions reduces office and office-like building energy consumption by 25% with payback periods of less than two years for our clients! You don't have to be a green zealot, you don't have to care about our nation's energy security, you don't have to care about dwindling energy supply for this to make sense - you just have to care about saving money, which we do so much better than the traditional, capital-intensive retrofit solutions that are already out there. And yet we're spending months out there trying to raise capital from professional and private sources that are still pretty risk averse / gun shy from the beating everyone took in the recent downturn. Oh and by the way, the government just passed regulations to make it harder for us to legally take investment from private sources! We are the exact poster child of what the administration claims to want to support and yet we are killing ourselves just trying to move along.

Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe our idea sucks. Maybe I'm just very bad at raising funds - it is my first time, after all. I readily admit that this is quite possible. But I see many other great ideas / entrepreneurs out there in the same situation while, at the same time, the capital markets are throwing ridiculous bubble-style money on social media companies that have yet to show any true value creation.

I was in Washington DC the week that Obama was elected and I was electrified / excited. In front of the Lincoln Memorial I signed a huge card to him. Above my signature I wrote, "Lead us to a better energy future!" Instead I've seen him spend a lot of political capital getting more people insured by a healthcare system that is totally broken (Stay tuned for a subsequent blog post on this.) and take very few, ineffective steps on energy.

A better energy future will not be attained by doling out government funds for slow, academic research and deployment of existing technologies. In fact, it isn't the government's position to dole out funds for these purposes at all. The government has no competence in taking risks and it is actually built from the ground up to avoid such risks. Doling out funds should be left to private industry so that efficient capital markets can determine what gets funded. If the government wants to help - and I believe it should want to help - it should set a better economic context to motivate cleantech endeavors. This means eliminating massive tax breaks for dirty energy production and ceasing to subsidize energy as heavily as we do throughout the value chain. This means more money for the government to reduce its insane deficit and more motivation for investment in newer / riskier startups.

Finally, the government should step up and show some true leadership. Create a sputnik moment by inspiring people. Obama has many more eyes on him than I do but, as long as he continues to fail in this regard, I'll keep trying to inspire people from the ground up. Day by day I get a little bit further and I have little bit more effect. If Obama lets me beat him to inspiring a generation to focus on cleantech, then shame on him.

Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics have begun and I once again find myself captivated by numerous sports that I don't understand at all. There's just something so fundamentally interesting about assembling the best in the world for fair competition, no matter the sport or event.

Relative to the Winter Olympics of 2006, these games have more meaning for me. Of course I cheer for the USA, as I always have, and for Italy, as I always have. But now I also cheer for Switzerland and a host of other countries where I now have dear friends, classmates, and colleagues. For example, when the Czech Republic won gold, I smiled broadly as I knew my Czech friends would be celebrating intensely--especially as seriously as they take winter sports!

As there is still debate among countries about the proper way to "score" Olympic medal counts (See my post from the Summer Olympics of 2008.), I continue to use my weighted medal system (See my follow-up post from the Summer Olympics of 2008.) in which golds receive 5 points, silvers 3 points, and bronzes 1 point. By this account, the current standings are:

USA and Germany tied for first (14 points), France (11), South Korea (8), Canada (6), Czech Republic, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Slovakia tied (5), Italy (2)

Note that if the Czech Republic and Slovakia are combined (as I know my good friend, Martin Najzr, would want), they're in fourth place, just behind France. Russia is conspicuously missing from the list so far, but I know our comrades will pick up the pace soon.

Let the Games begin; I look forward to following the events over the next two weeks!

A New Way

There's a feeling I get

When I look to the West

And my spirit is crying for leaving

-"Stairway to Heaven," Led Zeppelin

After months of very hard, conflicted consideration I submitted my resignation to Poken on July 13th. In this blog entry I will lay out the reasons behind my decision and present what comes next.

First, let me be clear: I love Poken. I believe in its success. I especially love the team, including the awesome, incredibly dedicated people we have on staff AND the amazing extended team of resellers, evangelists, and users around the world. I've never been part of something before that has elicited so much passion so quickly from so many. So why leave? There are many reasons, but they fall broadly into three categories:

1. As many of you know, my real desire post-IMD was to make a positive impact on the global energy challenge. I tried to tell myself that Poken would be a learning opportunity (and it has been!) that would better prepare me for a green career later on (and it has done!) but, at the end of the day, I'm just not buying my own rhetoric. Every movie I watch, every book I read, and most of the news articles I read remind me that energy presents THE challenge of this generation and I simply don't feel fulfilled professionally if I'm not contributing to the solution. Looking back through my IMD application essays and even my very first blog entry reminds me that developing the skills and tools to help address this challenge was my major motivation to come to IMD in the first place. 250 blog posts later, sitting in the Poken office, I began feeling that I had lost my way--time to get back on track.

2. I need to be closer to Katie. I love her, I need her, my life is more complete when I'm around her, and she deserves better than a partner who is halfway around the world. After 18 months of trying to make a commuter relationship work, I have a lot of airline frequent flier miles (Woohoo!) but that is little compensation for the heartache during the times apart. It was hard at IMD but we always had the light at the end of the tunnel of graduation. Now there is no light other than one that we make for ourselves. My prospects in the US are much more favorable than are hers in Europe, so I will return to the US.

3. There is another reason to return to the US as well: my country needs me. Oh wow, that looks even more arrogant on my screen than it sounded in my head. Let me explain. We spent a lot of time last year--especially in Jean-Pierre Lehmann's International Political Economy class--revealing the faults of the US and the mistakes my country has made. I learned a lot from the 44 nations represented in our auditorium about collective psychology and about attitudes toward the US--both positive and negative. Perhaps nowhere did I learn more, though, than in study room 007. I will never forget a heated debate with my Chinese groupmate, Gong Ping, regarding with whom lay the responsibility for changing the world's course on energy. Over time it sunk in that the world may never correct its path unless we gluttons who steered it wrongly in the first place lead by example. And so I believe that a better energy future has to begin with the US. Thank you, Chairman, for helping me see the way.

Over the past several years I spent a lot of time apologizing for the US--it was hard not to, given the administration. I moved to Europe. I even applied for dual citizenship in Italy. I'm ashamed to say it but I may have lost my national identity somewhat. But discussions in class that made my blood boil, the rhetoric of a new administration, and a lot of self reflection have jolted me back to my senses.

For all her faults, I love my country. I still get chills when I hear the Star-Spangled Banner. I still cry when I think of those who have given their lives in her service. I'm still a patriot. I've never taken the opportunity to serve my country as valiantly as have some of my noble friends and family in the forces, but now perhaps I can do my part. She needs devoted leaders to support a sea change in energy and I will answer the call.

Leaving something that is very successful and gaining momentum is hard to do so I spent a lot of time toiling with the rational pros and cons of my decision. At the end of the day, though, I made the decision for exactly one very irrational, very compelling reason: this new direction just feels right. Trusting my feelings is something I still have a hard time doing but I had a much harder time with it before IMD. Many thanks to all of my professors, classmates, and especially loved ones for helping me develop both the awareness of and trust in those feelings last year.

So what now? I will stay with Poken until the end of August to ensure a smooth transition of my responsibilities and not leave Poken hanging. I will remain in Lausanne until the end of September to tie up loose ends and begin work on identifying whatever comes next. I have an offer to be the CEO of a US green technology startup. It's a really good fit for my background (IT-based, B2B, based in Houston) so I may take it, but I am still vetting the opportunity and identifying others. I feel actually somewhat as I did at this point last year: with a universe of possibilities out there and not really knowing where to start. With the benefit of 8 months of work behind me, though, I am now much more focused on exactly what I want to be doing and where/how I can contribute the most.

Whatever I wind up doing, I will miss my classmates and Poken colleagues on this side of the Pond very dearly. I emailed this blog post out to my classmates yesterday and the tremendous outpouring of support I have received from them has been nothing short of moving. In the language of George Kohlrieser, my family, friends, and classmates are secure bases that give me the strength for tough decisions and I am truly blessed to have them in my life. This move will be a step toward living up to all the blessings I have been given. There is no certainty in this path and I don't know where it will lead. However, in a blog entry just over a year ago, upon my return from Kenya, I committed to give responsible leadership all I've got. Well, here it is. Here I am. Bring it on.

Poken is encroaching on US soil!

One of my coworkers attended SXSW in Austin last week and inadvertently made a big splash for Poken. We found ourselves on the front page of techcrunch, on many US blog sites, and . . . on NPR!!! Our site traffic has doubled since then and we have completely sold out on every continent (Last week we launched the product in Japan and it sold out in hours!). Not to worry, though, manufacturing has ramped up and we will be restocked soon. This is very exciting!

In other news, I went for my first run along the lake of 2009 Monday evening with my favorite running partner. The skies were clear and the red sunset reflected pink off the snowy mountains. The weather was warm enough to wear shorts (although still with long sleeves) and the birds chirping + trees budding harkened the spring to come. The lake was as smooth as glass, so all of the above was reflected beautifully during a long, slow jog.

While she has been here we have been cooking every night. Potato leek soup, wild mushroom risotto, mmmmmm. It feels so good to have a real kitchen again!

Yesterday I flew up to London for the first all-hands meeting of our Sales & Marketing (S&M!) team. It took 10 hours of travel for < 5 hours of discussion but it was good to have our personnel from the US, Netherlands, UK, and Switzerland all together in the same place. Next week I may find myself in Taiwan. Welcome to the world of the mobile work force!

Back in the USA!

I just spent 10.5 hours on the flight from Paris to Houston. Continental, which has always had a great product, has upgraded its 777s with power plugs at each seat—very helpful for laptop-minded travelers such as myself. However, I really didn’t take advantage of the new feature as I was distracted by the entertainment system, which had been upgraded as well.

With a selection of 300+ movies to start, stop, pause, and fast forward as I please, I had the chance to catch up on American movies that had been released while I was abroad. I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Iron Man, Leatherheads, and, running out of new movies I wanted to see, Rear Window. It made for a very pleasant flight and now it’s good to be back in the US of A for the first time since early January!

Olympics Scoring

After heated debate with my classmates from around the world, I have decided to revise my Olympics medal scoring system. While we all agree that points should be given for silver and bronze medals (After all, shouldn't winning gold and silver be worth more than just winning gold alone?), the topic of dispute was how many points each medal should be awarded.

Under my original scheme, golds were worth 3 points, silvers 2, and bronzes 1. This means that earning silver and and bronze together would be equivalent to earning gold. Our consensus was that a single gold was worth more than silver and bronze together; after all, gold is the best in the world. Accordingly, my new "official" system assigns 5 points to gold, 3 points to silver, and 1 point to bronze.

As of now, China retains the lead with 330 points (49 gold, 19 silver, 28 bronze). The US follows closely with 317 points (34 gold, 37 silver, 35 bronze). Russia, Great Britain, and Australia bring up the rest of the top five, each with scores in the 100s. With only two days of competition left, GAME ON!

Also, I have posted pics of my dinner up in the Swiss mountains in my facebook album.

Swiss Dairy

Last night was fantastic. The entrepreneurs behind my spring startup project, deskNet, took my group out for a celebration dinner. This was something we intended to do back in May when the project finished, but final exams, Kenya, and vacation interfered. It was nice to take a break, though, as this way they could update us on their progress. It seems that we really added some value as they are now running an operation much more focused on a specific strategy.

They picked us up at IMD and drove us about an hour up into the mountains. When it became clear that the only signs of life for miles around were evergreen trees and cattle, we came upon a dairy farm that doubled as an out-of-the-way restaurant, La Bréguette. Apparently others were in on the secret as the rows of tables inside the farm house were packed. We settled down to a delicious meal of escargots, cold meats, fondue, and incredible desserts. Cream, cheese, and chocolate were made there at the dairy so were prominently featured throughout the menu. Add a little (OK, a lot) Swiss white wine and great conversation and we found ourselves back at IMD after midnight. The crisp night air and bright stars up in the mountains were really refreshing; Switzerland is not a bad place to live. I wish the deskNET team all the best and I look forward to following their success.

Today has been a great day for USA volleyball. Misty May and Kerri Walsh won their second consecutive Olympic gold in beach volleyball (their 108th consecutive match win) while the indoor women's team advanced to the gold medal match. Tomorrow it's time for the men to show that they can keep up!

US Immigration

Today's IPE class featured discussion of Europe's immigration policies and challenges. In much of the discussion, the US (along with Australia and Canada) was held up as an example of "good" immigration culture. Perhaps I've become so bogged down by the US media, where immigration is always a hot topic and our policies are always portrayed as needing to be "fixed," but it was interesting to hear the perspective of 80+ students from other countries. Apparently the US isn't doing such a bad job.

One thing this course has driven home to me is that I took so many things for granted growing up in the US. Many, many other places in the world enjoy so much less wealth, freedom, and . . . hope than we do; I feel very fortunate to have, through no fault of my own, had the opportunities I have had. As my Romanian-American classmate points out, perhaps I'm still riding high on the excellent representation of the US brought to us by yesterday's visit from Warren Buffett. Either way, I'm proud to be an American and God bless America!

May Day

"First of May, first of May
F%#&ing outdoors starts today."
--James Taylor

Although it snowed briefly yesterday, the weather is still beautiful and I stick to my contention that Spring has arrived in Lausanne. People are coughing and sneezing a great deal in class so once again I am trying to remain physically and mentally fit to ward off any virus that may be going around. The last thing I want is to let my team down during this weekend's integrative exercise because I am sick.

Today in Accounting we studied cases of rogue traders who were able to cause the collapse of healthy, established banks by incurring huge losses unchecked. In each case there was a combination of factors (ethics, controls, ignorance, bureaucracy, communication, etc.) that contributed to the crisis, in each case the industry claimed it had learned its lessons after the fact, and in each case there was another, almost identical event relatively shortly thereafter.

What interested me most about this discussion was that this was not the first time we discussed cases about management ignoring blatant warning signs due to group dynamics, misaligned incentives, and individual psychologies. For example, in our Organizational Leadership class (the continuance of LPO, taught by Australian professor Ben Bryant) we studied the case of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident and the management decisions that led to it.

Irrational human behavior is something that has not changed and probably will not change. The key challenge is preventing it from translating into irrational organizational behavior. How can a leader address that? Culture change? Control mechanisms? Moreover, how can one address it while not causing drastic consequences, e.g., stifling innovation with too much control? Clearly there is no universal answer but we are learning more each day about how at least to identify such situations, their symptoms, and their causes.

And speaking of irrational organizational behavior, IPE is about to start. Today's topics: China-US trade relations and the Chinese Olympics. Heated debate, here I come!