My 2014 Review & 2015 To-Do List

Every year, much like every day, there is a moment where the end is the beginning. Today, perhaps is as good a moment to reflect on the year which is winding down. It was quite a wonderful year — travel, food, family moments and a chance to meet the mighty, the marvelous and the famous.

It has also been a year of self reflection — an attempt to slow down, get off Internet’s rigmarole, be less anxious and perhaps like a piece of chalk, soak in life. I have enjoyed reconnecting with old friends, made new friends and have slowly start to appreciate personal time.

But it hasn’t been the easiest of years. The relentlessness of internet publishing has a dangerously narcotic effect — the instant gratification and feedback on one’s work is enough to make rest of the world seem slow and plodding. My new life as a full time venture capitalist for True Ventures commands more patience and calm — and if anything 2014 has been a transition towards a more tranquil approach to life, crisis and creation.  Continue reading “My 2014 Review & 2015 To-Do List”

Take a peek at Pico

The internet is inevitable. I don’t mean just the hypnosis of your Instagram feed but how broadband and optical technologies allow everything to be connected. I’ve watched this grow since the mid-1990s, and today we are more connected more often in more places. The digitization of the physical world may have started slowly, but now we can find a digital heartbeat in even the most inanimate of objects. And it is changing how we live, work, create, consume, imagine, travel, and even cure ourselves. Continue reading “Take a peek at Pico”

Instagram ads and the future of brand advertising

From the very day that Facebook(s fb) acquired Instagram, there has been an impending sense of doom that our beloved moment-sharing platform would be overrun by ads, in order to meet Facebook’s insatiable need for growth and appease the Wall Street investors. Every single time I ran into Kevin Systrom (co-founder of Instagram with Mike … Continue reading Instagram ads and the future of brand advertising