When Uber founder Travis Kalanick asked me back in 2011 if I would take equity instead of cash as my consulting fee, I wasn’t immediately sure what to say. I believed in Travis and what he was trying to build, but the company was less than two years old and…

For three years now, I’ve taught a fall semester class at Columbia Business School called ‘The Economics and Politics of Digital Disruption.’ The title kinda tells you all you need to know. It’s been a great experience for me. I feel like I’ve provided value for my students, and I…

I read mainly fiction. Mainly new books but not always, so these are the best books I read in 2022, whether new (most are) or not (a few). I have a quick trigger finger so I start a lot more books than I finish. I’ve also had a lifelong dream…

There is a widely held misconception that intelligence equals success, or is at least the best predictor of it. As a result, society overvalues IQ and academic performance while undervaluing many of the qualities that are far more likely to indicate someone’s ability to succeed, especially in a non-linear…

This is either the dumbest parenting idea in the world or it’s a pretty good one. For the last four years, my son (who is now 13) and I have been reading the New York Post together, every morning, seven days a week. We started reading the Post because he…

People measure their lives in different ways. Some measure it by how much money they have and what they can buy with it. Some measure it by the love of their friends and family. Some measure it by what they can create. Some measure it by having time for their faith or their hobbies and passions. And some people measure their lives based on the impact they’ve had on the world. — To be clear, 95% of people in the United States and 99% of people around the world do not have the luxury of measuring their lives by anything other than getting by. …

Over the last fifty years, New York City has had seven different mayors (not counting Eric Adams, who just started this year). Five of those mayors then ran for higher office. President. Governor. Senator. House of Representatives. None have won. Ever. In fact, in its modern history, no New York…

For a few years, my friend Howard Wolfson and I had been lamenting that there was no prize that recognizes the best book each year either about or set in New York City. The greatest city in the world, in our view, deserved its own book prize. …

The emails and texts have been very well intentioned and fairly relentless. Friends asking what to do about the gun epidemic. Colleagues suggesting different types of social media or celebrity campaigns to educate people about guns and mass shootings. Business partners asking how we elect moderate Republicans and wanting to…