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My Third Book: From Nothing
Writers by affliction are an idiosyncratic lot. Other than a willingness to spend an enormous amount of time alone and a preternatural love of language construction, we don’t have all that much in...
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The Emergent Miracle of 50
Were popular songs from 1918 played widely in 1968? How about songs from 1928 in 1978? Or songs from 1938 in 1988? So how come songs from 1968 are still widely played in 2018? Want to know why? Here...
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Your War to End
Dear Teenage America: Your outrage is well founded. All your lives you’ve known gun violence as a norm. It was not a norm when we were in school. It should not be a norm. This is your Vietnam. It is a...
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Movies That Most Influenced My Life (So Far)
Shortly before the 90th Annual Academy Awards aired this past weekend, I took an online quiz asking how many of the 89 previous Best Pictures I had seen. Somewhat to my shock, the answer was 70. While...
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Is Facebook the Next AOL?
I used to like AOL. Back in the day we called it by its full name, America Online. Prior to the broad penetration of the Internet, it was how we connected with each other. It was the company we paid...
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My Beatles Top 10
Is it just me or we in the midst of a Beatles Renaissance? Each month of this decade offers a 50th anniversary of something surrounding The Beatles. I’ve already attended the 50th anniversary of The...
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The Compartments We Devise
We never know the full story when we look into someone else’s eyes. It doesn’t matter who it is. Our spouses, our children, our friends, our business colleagues—we all have chapters in our stories...
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Why Tom Wolfe Matters
What more can I add to the multitude of tributes to literary legend Tom Wolfe? Certainly nothing unique, but given the inspiration he has provided me, it would seem irresponsible not to add a few...
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Sam and Rosie: An Odd Couple
I can’t defend Samantha Bee because the harsh, offensive language she used this week was wrong. I have been a fan of her show since it launched, but I actually think it has gotten progressively worse...
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It’s a Hard Rock Life
From Nothing, my third and most personal novel, has moved from my ownership to yours. I hope it will mean something to you. It certainly has been an odyssey for me. The book is rock and roll, the...
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Why Do We Do Difficult Things?
I’ve been out on book tour for the launch of my new novel, From Nothing. At one of the early talks I began with a simple question: Why do we do difficult things? I’m not talking about...
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A Beguiling 20%
This month our nation celebrated its 242nd birthday. As I was sitting in the stands at Dodger Stadium on July 4 watching a spectacular and patriotic fireworks display (following a wonderful midseason...
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Three Thousand Ears in Cape Town
You’re probably thinking there is a typo in that headline. Nope. It’s correct. Not years. Ears. This is a story about service. This is a story about choices and not enough choices. This is a story...
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What’s Eating Brother Elon?
Let’s start with what needs to be said before all else: I am an enormous fan of Elon Musk. I think he is quite likely the most important and visionary entrepreneur today leading the way in technology,...
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Bad Behavior Made OK
I haven’t written about Donald Trump for quite some time. No, I’m not unwell, not more than anyone else. I brought out my third novel earlier this year and wanted to try to focus on storytelling...
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The Press and the President
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a briefing of journalists this past week exclaimed in exasperation: “You guys have a huge responsibility to play in the divisive nature of this...
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More Fallout from the Zuckerberg Files
Should the unintended consequences that emerge in the course of a company’s evolution be a primary concern of management? Is the exponential creation of shareholder value still the overriding force...
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But We’ve Always…
It’s December. For those of us who make our living in any form of consumer business, that usually means two things: We have made it through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with our projections now...
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Saving Our Language in the New Year
New Year’s Resolution #1: Stop beginning any spoken sentence with Candidly, Honestly, Quite Frankly, Truthfully, or To Tell You The Truth. Stagnant qualifiers pollute our language. If these preambles...
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Gone So Soon
Recently I gave an interview about one of my favorite career projects, Carmen Sandiego. It was being researched by an archivist! I hadn’t been asked in years about the mysterious thief in the red...
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