The Prudential building the other night when the Red Sox were playing. I was on my way to the Boston Symphony Orchestra when I looked up and saw this.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Flagship
I haven't had much time to blog recently between writing my dissertation, being teaching assistant for a class, trying to have a bit of computer-free time every day and my new part-time job . . .
. . . with Flagship Ventures.
The photo is of my desk there. Here's a bit about Flagship below. I'm focusing on medical devices there and hoping to identify some market opportunities of my own.
Flagship Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on creating, financing, and building innovative companies in the Life Science and Technology sectors. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Flagship Ventures was founded in 1999 and manages $700 million in capital. Prior to its founding, Flagship's principals were involved as founders or investors in over 100 firms including: Adolor, AltaVista, Anesta, Antigenics, Aspect Medical, Astral Point, Celera Genomics, ChemGenics Pharmaceuticals, Color Kinetics, Chantry Networks, Cytyc, DataSage, Exact Sciences, IDEXX, PerSeptive Biosystems, Somatogen, Telecorp PCS and TripAdvisor.
The Flagship investment team consists of 10 professionals and is led by co-founders Noubar Afeyan and Ed Kania. Complementing our internal team is our extensive network of academic and industrial advisors who are actively engaged in evaluating and helping develop our new ventures. Extending over a period of 20 years, our entrepreneurship and investment experience comes from founding over 30 successful new ventures while funding and building over 100 more.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Stress
I got an email this morning for a "stress-reduction class at MIT" (contradiction in terms, anyone?). That combined with the talk by Dan Gilbert (whose book Stumbling into Happiness is a must read) and the excellent talk on "how to achieve your childhood dreams" which I posted above gave me a great chance to think (yet again) about the choices we make about how to live our lives.
I have often expressed that I feel there is some tension between cultivating the kind of calm, content, peaceful, synthetic happiness, happy with the way things are . . . school of thought and the "life-hacker", squeeze every moment out of life, really change the world, burn ever brighter, life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all . . . school of thought. I find my life alternating at moments between the two and when I'm at either extreme, often idealizing the other pole. I do really think there is something to both. On the one hand, I can look back at times when I can really relate to how it's only when you're doing so much that you go through each day scared to death that you really grow and learn and push your boundaries. There is an exhilaration and a real sense of accomplishment once coming through a time like that. On the other hand, while there is a certain high from the adrenalin and sense of self-importance of being busy, I see the results in myself and friends of constant stress over a long period of time. So while there are advantages to each side, there are also drawbacks. If generated for too long, peace and calm, at least for me, quickly lead to boredom. Being stressed though leads to burnout, colds/flu, and lack of real fulfillment regardless of external accomplishment. Finding a razor's edge of balance between the two is not easy though.
Now that I am done with classes and have perhaps the largest amount of independence and control over my time ever, I have a lot of freedom to determine how my day is spent. It does seem though that drifting back and forth across these poles and reserving certain parts of the day or of the week for calm/peace is the way to go rather than the conventional wisdom of finding some kind of balance or going all towards one pole or the other...
I have often expressed that I feel there is some tension between cultivating the kind of calm, content, peaceful, synthetic happiness, happy with the way things are . . . school of thought and the "life-hacker", squeeze every moment out of life, really change the world, burn ever brighter, life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all . . . school of thought. I find my life alternating at moments between the two and when I'm at either extreme, often idealizing the other pole. I do really think there is something to both. On the one hand, I can look back at times when I can really relate to how it's only when you're doing so much that you go through each day scared to death that you really grow and learn and push your boundaries. There is an exhilaration and a real sense of accomplishment once coming through a time like that. On the other hand, while there is a certain high from the adrenalin and sense of self-importance of being busy, I see the results in myself and friends of constant stress over a long period of time. So while there are advantages to each side, there are also drawbacks. If generated for too long, peace and calm, at least for me, quickly lead to boredom. Being stressed though leads to burnout, colds/flu, and lack of real fulfillment regardless of external accomplishment. Finding a razor's edge of balance between the two is not easy though.
Now that I am done with classes and have perhaps the largest amount of independence and control over my time ever, I have a lot of freedom to determine how my day is spent. It does seem though that drifting back and forth across these poles and reserving certain parts of the day or of the week for calm/peace is the way to go rather than the conventional wisdom of finding some kind of balance or going all towards one pole or the other...
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