High Tech in the Hub

A few years ago I had a project manager from my team in Scotland send me a copy of Eliyahu Goldratt’s The Goal after learning I’d never read the 1984 classic. At the time, the constraint this team was struggling with was an ability to get software specifications

When Google Cardboard was released last year, I remember thinking: interesting, but no time to play. I’d almost forgotten about the project when my 8th grader mentioned his interest in virtual reality last Saturday. Since my youngest son’s interest in technology does not extend much beyond keeping up

I recently presented to a group of enterprise IT executives on the state of the public cloud. To my surprise I met business professionals who actually thought the public cloud was not going to have a big impact on their industry. I swiped my phone for a moment to confirm

Confession: I have a love hate relationship with product documentation. While I can appreciate the value of well written technical documentation, I can’t help but feel it has a poor ROI these days. So when I started my current company, I committed myself to investing in an intuitive user

On a recent long drive to Upstate New York, my wife asked me for the books that impacted my life. I found it surprising how easily I could name each book, and was even able to recall the look and feel of my personal copy (some of which sadly did

The excitement was running high last night while we waited for the final voting results from our Spring 2015 CloudHealth hackathon. The presentations were over, the beer had run out, and everyone was enjoying some well deserved post-hackathon socializing. We followed the same format as our last hackathon: at 5

If you didn’t read the murmuring from the CEO of Zenefits responding to a candidate’s post on Quora, it is worth a read (note: unfortunately he later edited out his original reply in which he stated the offer was rescinded). As a publicity stunt, it probably worked wonders

Just like we have founders of a business, we also have founding customers. These are customers who took a chance on you at the earliest stages when there was very little to take a chance on. While they may have paid for your product in those early days, they more

I just finished Tony Hsieh’s book, Delivering Happiness, which is an autobiography of his tech journey from Illinois to the acquisition of Zappos by Amazon. As an avid reader of tech non-fiction, I can’t get enough startup stories behind the story. It’s great to get away from

Two things made me want to read Brent Schlender’s Becoming Steve Jobs after its release last week: 1) all the media talk from Apple insiders that this was the “real Steve Jobs”, and 2) its simple and compelling premise: exploring how a reckless and arrogant entrepreneur became one of

I've been reading Brent Schlender's Becoming Steve Jobs this weekend, which is being promoted as the "real story" of the Apple CEO. There is no doubt Walter Isaacson didn't make too many Apple friends with his Steve Jobs biography, which portrayed Jobs as a sort of brilliant but

Every day across the tech industry, teams gather for daily stand-up meetings. While the structure varies by organization, the intent is the same: to efficiently provide status and identify blocking issues. While I have attended many stand-ups over the years, I have an odd footnote in my personal history: I

Early in CloudHealth I used Trello as a quick and easy way to manage my time. Having a visual board gave me a sense of order that helped better manage my Lean validation. As time went on and the company was formed, I found new uses for Trello, such as

The Lean movement has made everyone aware of the importance of a feedback loop in driving the success of businesses, products and features. By driving tight and iterative Build-Measure-Learn loops, organizations can limit the risk of their investments and not overcommit resources toward initiatives that either fail or do not

As entrepreneurs of early stage businesses, we all aspire to help our companies navigate the turbulent waters from idea to product market fit. But once you've achieved product market fit, a new and sometimes harder challenge often arises: scaling the business. During the scaling phase, an upside to being an

While there are many personal services and products I value and pay for, there are a few I do not. My Verizon Wireless service falls in the later category. While I value being able to have voice and internet connectivity wherever I go, I will confess to believing this should

After years of being in the closet, I'm coming clean: I'm a technology profiler. In my never ending search for good engineers, I instinctively form opinions of the quality of someone's software talent based on nothing more than what I see in their profile. It's like a facial tic I

I get asked on a regular basis what I’m looking for in engineers. I think most people are expecting the answers found in a typical job description - e.g. CS degree or equivalent, 4+ years commercial software experience, work experience with modern language (i.e. Python, Ruby, Scala)

It’s no secret some of the best job opportunities in the Boston area are in technology startups. Last year venture capitalists invested almost $5 billion in local companies, making the tech sector one of the fastest growing segments of our local economy. In addition to the professional freedom and

Last year while reading Walter Isaacson's The Innovators, I was surprised to learn about The Mother of All Demos, a presentation by computing pioneer Douglas Engelbart in 1968. A YouTube video of the presentation is provided below. In the video you can see the heritage of many of the modern

I’ve made a few visits to Andreessen Horowitz over the last two years, and each time paid little attention to the books on the wall to wall bookshelves in the lobby. Arriving a little early for an informal coffee meeting last November, I spent a few minutes reviewing the

The end of last year I spent a day in the Silicon Valley talking with a few venture investors and entrepreneurs to get a better sense of the current market. This pre-dated the raising of our B round, so the discussions were informal, and mostly with people with whom I

Monday is the last day you can purchase Google Glass. The controversial Google X research project will be taken off the shelf as part of its move into a product division under Tony Fadell, the former founder / CEO of Nest Labs. While the debate over whether Glass was a success

It's official: venture capital investing in New England is at a 10+ year high. The latest study from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows venture capitalists invested just over $5 billion in New England startups in 2014, with 93% of the funds going into Massachusetts. This puts us at a little more than 10%

While LinkedIn has become an indispensible tool in recruiting, it still amazes me how primitive it remains for matching great candidates to great companies. Below is the LinkedIn search I wish I could express, which is of course pure fiction today. But in the fiction is a commentary on the