breese27

The Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently addressed the Cadets at West Point. It's always nice to see/hear from our leadership. See the full speech here. (hat tip: Cameron Schaefer ) Here are some of the nuggets I pulled out: But in my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined,” as General MacArthur so delicately put it. If you chart a different path... Read Full Story

After 18 months as the CEO at TestSoup, I decided it was time to transition the company in a new direction. I am extremely proud of everything we have accomplished thus far and I couldn't be happier with the team that's in place. You guys/gals rock. Before stepping down, I was asked to write down everything I did as the CEO and turn the information into a job description. Long story short, a startup CEO is responsible for everything: company vision and mission, operations, sales, marketing... Read Full Story

In response to the plethora of articles recently about how the military fails to retain its best officers , I asked one of my most trusted business colleagues what the private sector really thinks about those with prior military experience. Moreover, I asked what Silicon Valley and the startup community thinks about hiring ex-military officers. Must hire? Maybe hire? Here is the reply from one of my business partners, Chris Yeh. He is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor, and Harvard MBA... Read Full Story

An idea is simply that. An idea. Ask my business partners—I usually have 2-3 of them every day. Just because we fire around an idea doesn’t mean we’ll try to make it a business. By now I’m sure you’ve seen or heard that Mark Zuckerberg “stole” the idea for Facebook from a couple other students at Harvard. I simply laugh in disgust at the accusation. Bottom line for the other guys: they had to do absolutely nothing to cash in for millions in a lawsuit. What a joke. Ideas are cheap . Having an... Read Full Story

Steve Newcomb writes: What happens when founders try to sleep at night is this: their mind spins uncontrollably between scenarios that result in a glorious success and scenarios that result in a burning death crash. Most founders I know ride a fine line between seeming to be in total control and going nut balls. All I can say is welcome to the club - you're normal! Whenever people ask me how I make it through, I always say the same thing. Sit down and write down the storms that you are... Read Full Story

Cultivating weak relationships and the rise of social networking: You have 2,000 friends on Facebook, 3,000 followers on Twitter, hundreds of connections on LinkedIn, etc, etc, etc. What are you really? I surmise you are either incredibly good at marketing your own brand or you spend way too much time cultivating weak relationships that have virtually no importance. The rise of social networking has certainly allowed people to connect and stay connected with people all over the world—but have... Read Full Story

Although Abraham Lincoln possessed a laundry list of personality traits that enabled him to transcend the many troubles of the Nineteenth Century, perhaps his greatest trait (in my opinion)—aside from his unwavering character—was his ability to see the “big picture,” neither surrendering to opposing viewpoints nor soap boxing himself above Constitutional and moral law. Good leaders have the ability to deal with critics; exceptional leaders surround themselves with critics. How did Lincoln do... Read Full Story

One of the more unique blog posts from Ben Casnocha flew into my inbox this morning: Contrasts in How Google Suggests Searches. Something I've thought about before, but never really compared various word(s)/number(s)/grammatical combinations in the Google search box. He suggests that there "is nowhere we are more honest than the search box. We don't lie to Google. Period." From blogger Michael Agger , "the graphic compares "less intelligent" queries with "more intelligent" queries such as... Read Full Story

I must say there have been some really funny websites launched in the past 6 months. I’m going to give my rundown of some of the best funny sites I’ve found. Please email me if you find more: People of Wal-Mart: www.peopleofwalmart.com Instant sensation and one of those “why didn’t I think of that” websites. Reports say the traffic jumped 700% in one day alone and crashed the web-server. Anyone can submit pictures of the ridiculous people they see while shopping at Wal-Mart. VexBoard: www... Read Full Story

Yahoo has a pretty good article out today called “ The 7 Most Overrated Businesses ” I agree with the article in a sense, but question the author’s motives with respect to the intent of the article. After all, small business is the backbone of our nation. If every start-up entrepreneur running a successful company today followed this advice, where would we be now? Regardless, the article is worth the read for those of you thinking it will be easy. Read Full Story