I humbly share five life lessons I learned from my parents:
1. Seek to understand why you might be wrong, not to prove why you might be right. You aren’t as smart as you think you are, so find mentors who are A) smarter and more experienced in life than you, and B) have your best interest in mind and no reason to misguide you; then, consider their counsel seriously no matter how difficult it is to hear.
I know it’s hard for many of my friends to appreciate the severity of the tension and helplessness that many African Americans feel towards law enforcement. To Americans of European descent, especially those in the upper socio-economic classes, the fear and antagonism directed towards a police force that is, by and large, hard-working and committed…
I’m once again in a bit of a contemplative mood thanks to a thoughtful coffee discussion with a good friend this morning. I’m more convinced than ever that, while it’s been the most tragic event of our lifetimes, we’ll exit this epidemic in a dramatically better place than we entered it. First and foremost, we…
I write to reflect. Nothing helps me think through an idea and reach a defensible position than composing an article on the matter. I write to escape. Some find intellectual and emotional escape in outdoor activities, watching a movie, or reading a book; for me, writing provides that mental escape. I write to endure. It…
I’ve long preferred real estate over financial assets. The 2008 crisis taught me a lot of lessons about real estate investing. Most of them were expensive. But, hey, education is worth paying for. However, unlike that last financial crisis over a decade ago, the current COVID crisis doesn’t have at its core a connection to…
In order to begin formulating plans for a hopeful return to normalcy, I realized it was important for me to understand how all of the measures we’ve all become accustomed to discussing related to one another: physical distancing, PPE, antibody testing, herd immunity, and so on. This short video is my attempt at explaining all of these concepts to myself as a layperson. Think of it as Epidemiology for Dummies :-).
Over the coming month, one topic will overshadow Coronavirus/COVID-19: reopening the economy. Because I consider this much more than a “reopening” – beyond the bounds of any state or country, and much broader in scope than the economy – I prefer to use the phrase “rebooting the world.”
Yes, I’m a computer scientist turned businessperson. Yes, I like the objective, the tangible, and the quantitative. But, as I’ve grown, I’ve come to appreciate the impact the qualitative has on the quantitative, the abstract on the tangible, and the subjective on the objective. As students of business, we think of the economy as…
This is meant as an economic, non-political post reflecting on my thoughts as to the interplay between the public and private sectors. As early as four decades ago, my father, a political scientist and economist (with a PhD in each discipline), used to describe to me how society would eventually find a healthy balance between…
Credit: IHME As I close out another incredibly long day, I decided to once again sit down for a few minutes and write to clear my mind. Today, as I bid farewell to what felt like the longest March in history, I realize that we are concluding the first chapter in this saga, a chapter…
