5 years ago today I did a crazy thing. I walked away from a great job to pursue an inkling of an idea. This was a clean (psychotic) break from the first 25 years of my life, during which I played by all the rules, colored inside the lines, and took well-trodden paths. Goodbye to […]
Category: Career
Be Unhappy.
Each day, I skim through the headlines of the Aspen Institute’s Five Best Ideas of the Day newsletter. One caught my eye this morning: The secret to office happiness isn’t working less—it’s caring less The premise is unnervingly true. Caring less is the cultural aspiration du jour in a time when many of us are suffering […]
#Firstthirtyjobs
I have always been obsessed with working. My very first job was “Mother’s Helper” for my neighbor at age 9 and I just started collecting hustles from there. Unlike most young entrepreneurs, I wasn’t really in it for the money. I liked making money, but I viewed it as buying my independence to shop and […]
Magically Redefine Your Team Roles and Responsibilities
Last quarter, a few things happened at once with our team at Allovue. 1) We were at a major inflection point, shifting my focus as CEO from mostly on product development to mostly on sales & marketing 2) Our CTO’s wife was 7 months pregnant, so we wanted to free up some of his time […]
Everything I know about being a CEO, I learned being a teacher
“How can you be a CEO when you were just a teacher?” This is one of the most common questions I have fielded as the CEO and founder of Allovue, an early-stage financial analytics company. Initially the question offended me; I prickled at the insinuation of all the worst teacher stereotypes: teachers aren’t as smart […]
If You Can’t Do Anything Else
Every theatre kid has a moment (or many moments) when they consider pursuing a career in acting. I had my moments. Every few months or so for the decade between middle school and college graduation (the heyday of my theatre career, as life would have it), I would threaten my parents with pursuing acting. I […]
In Response to “The Imaginary Teacher Shortage”
On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion editorial by Jay Greene, “The Imaginary Teacher Shortage,” which posited that while the United States has added a million teachers to the rolls since 1970, student performance has remained unchanged. Greene challenged the presidential candidates’ plans to add more teachers, imploring state and local officials to […]