Brad Feld

Over 5 million copies sold around the world. The original book from Morgan Housel, the New York Times bestselling author of Same As Ever. Doing well with money isn't necessarily about what you know. It's about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. Money – investing, personal finance, and business decisions – is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don't make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life's most important topics.

At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl's fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated and inaccurate stories. This book, the result of five years of research, presents an accessible but comprehensive account of what really happened. From the desperate fight to prevent a burning reactor core from irradiating eastern Europe, to the self-sacrifice of the heroic men who entered fields of radiation so strong that machines wouldn't work, to the surprising truth about the legendary 'Chernobyl divers', all the way through to the USSR's final show-trial. The historical narrative is interwoven with a story of the author's own spontaneous journey to Ukraine's still-abandoned city of Pripyat and the wider Chernobyl Zone. Complete with over 45 pages of photographs of modern-day Pripyat and technical diagrams of the power station, Chernobyl 01:23:40 is a fascinating new account of the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist and Serial Entrepreneur teaches how to succeed in taking your startup from idea to product to company.Accelerated Startup takes entrepreneurs through the startup minefield from fostering revolutionary ideas to building the right team and launching the product to raising angel and venture capital to finding the first 10,000 customers and ultimately taking the company to a successful exit. It is filled with practical lessons learned from years of hands-on experience, until now, available only in top startup accelerator programs.

The new second edition of this book is now available, published by Wiley. Get the real guidance you need to create and build your first startup company from founders who have been there many times before. The Startup Playbook is our personal, how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up. In it, you ll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we ve learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We re sharing our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you. We make no bones about our bias. We re on your side, the founder s side. There is no doubt that venture capitalists, investors, and accelerators/incubators have great value in the startup ecosystem, but this book isn t about their points of view. We ll tell you where our interests as founders diverge from those on the other side of the table investors, bankers, advisors, board members, and others and what to do when that happens. Between us, we ve started over a dozen high-tech software companies, raised over $500 million in investment capital, acquired over thirty-five companies, had three of our startups go public, sold six of them, and we made billions of dollars for shareholders. We ve also advised and mentored over two hundred companies and actively worked with venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and accelerators to help launch many other new startups. We ve had plenty of failures, too. And we ve probably learned more from those than from the successes. We share those lessons as well. The Startup Playbook is full of advice and guidance from entrepreneurs who have been in the role of the founder many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve.

Title: Enchanted Objects( Design Human Desire and the Internet of Things) Binding: Hardcover Author: DavidRose Publisher: ScribnerBookCompany

This guide is the most comprehensive resource of its kind available, with contribution and review from experienced founders, lawyers, and investors—including Brad Feld, José Ancer, Camille Ricketts, Leo Polovets, Clerky co-founders Darby Wong and Chris Field, Danielle Morrill, Joe Wallin (co-author of the Holloway book, Angel Investing: Start to Finish), and many more. It will help any founder raise the right way, with confidence. This print edition includes lifetime digital access to additional features and future updates at Holloway.com. Venture capital is a powerful tool for entrepreneurship—one that can help overcome some of the challenges of starting and scaling a new business. It’s notoriously easy for founders to take wrong turns in their path to financing a company—but many mistakes are avoidable with the right knowledge. Author Andy Sparks is a three-time founder whose goal is helping entrepreneurs avoid pain, costly mistakes, and fruitless research. Topics covered include: Assessing whether to raiseDetermining how much to raise and understanding how valuation and dilution are connected to how much you raiseChoosing a financing structureCreating a target list of investorsDesigning and delivering your pitch and what to expect in investor meetingsEverything a founder needs to know about term sheets (created with startup lawyers!), including sample term sheetsThis book also includes appendices on networking and mentorship for founders, how venture capitalists make money (think returns, management fees, and carried interest), and a list of example pitch decks. Raising venture capital isn’t inevitable for every startup or every founder. The best founders go into the process of raising money with their eyes wide open to all the possibilities, including alternate ways to raise, and the options available to them, from financing structures to pitch designs to what terms to fight for. They can anticipate the next steps in the process before they begin, and ask themselves the important questions along the way. They know what will change between each round, and what to keep an eye out for when it comes to risks and pitfalls. They’ll know how those good relationships—with investors, other founders, their team, and their customers—are the most important part of building a successful company, and they know just how to find, foster, and sustain those relationships. Let the Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital be there for you, the trusted friend you can turn to again and again.

What avoidable problem destroys more young startups than any other? Why is it a mistake to ask for introductions to investors? When do you play the CEO card? Should you sell out? Author and four-time founder/CEO Dan Shapiro tells the stories of dozens of startups whose companies lived and died by the advice in these pages. From inception to destruction and triumph to despair, this rollercoaster read takes aspiring entrepreneurs from the highs of billion-dollar payouts and market-smashing success to the depths of impostor syndrome and bankruptcy. Hot Seat is divided into the five phases of the startup CEO experience: Founding explains how to formulate your idea, allocate equity, and not argue yourself to death Funding provides the keys to venture capital, angels, and crowdfunding, plus clear advice on which approach to choose Leadership lays out a path to build a strategy and culture for your team that will survive good times and bad Management reveals how to manage your board, argue with your team, and play the CEO card Endgame explains how to finish a company's existence with grace, wealth, and minimal litigation

ABOUT THE BOOK The Burning Man, the storied ritual of self-expression, has evolved into The Burning Entrepreneur, the ultimate self-expression through start-up success. Renowned tech investor and start-up guru Brad Feld lights YOU on fire with this insiders book that will teach you how to launch, fund and run your own company. If youre already an entrepreneur or have always dreamed of being one, douse yourself in Feld Thoughts and catch the spark. Youll be burning, entrepreneur, with this e-book!. Feld Thoughts is a great example of truth in advertising. This blog, which has existed since before blogging was cool, collects the thoughts of Brad Feld, investor, entrepreneur, MIT grad, tech lover and marathoner. Brads blog is a backstage pass to the 24/7 rock show that is tech startups. It is a master class in startup investing for givers and takers of funds. It is a rolling critique of tech products vast and simple (with enough edge to make the most scathing restaurant critic in Manhattan blush). And it is the journal of a peripatetic marathoner who still believes he will crack the four-hour mark someday. From such Feld Thoughts, we have constructed The Burning Entrepreneur, the e-book on startups that you would take to a desert island if it had electricity, a decent Internet connection and angel investors. The Burning Entrepreneur illuminates the actions and attitudes required to launch, fund and ignite your startup. Brad Feld is on fire. Find out what happens when you stand too close. MEET THE AUTHOR Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over 20 years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars. Brad currently serves on the board of directors of BigDoor, Cheezburger Networks, Fitbit, Gnip, MakerBot, Oblong, Orbotix, and Standing Cloud for Foundry Group. Previously, Brad served as chief technology officer of AmeriData Technologies. AmeriData acquired Feld Technologies, a firm he founded in 1987 that specialized in custom software applications. Brad had grown Feld Technologies into one of Bostons leading software consulting firms prior to the acquisition. He also directed the diversification into software consulting at AmeriData, a $1.5 billion publicly-traded company which was acquired by GE Capital in 1995. In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, co-chair of Startup Colorado, and on the board of Startup Weekend. Brad is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship and writes the widely read blogs Feld Thoughts and Ask the VC. Notable companies that Brad has invested in and/or sat on the boards of include Abuzz (acq. NYT), Anyday.com (acq. PALM), Critical Path (CPTH), Cyanea (acq. IBM), Dante Group (acq. WEBM), DataPower (acq. IBM), FeedBurner (acq. by GOOG), Feld Group (acq. by EDS), and Zynga (ZNGA). Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brad is also an avid art collector and long-distance runner. He has completed 21 marathons as part of his mission to run a marathon in each of the 50 states. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK So weve set you on fire and told you to toe the nearest precipice. Before you think that being a burning entrepreneur only means taking punishment, lets talk about putting the hurt on others (in a positive business sense). When thinking about the characteristics of some of my favorite companies, a phrase popped into my head about what ties all of these companies together they are the silent killers. Buy a copy to continue reading!

The New York Times bestselling author of Neuromancer and Zero History presents a fast-paced sci-fi thriller that takes a terrifying look into the future... Flynne Fisher lives down a country road, in a rural America where jobs are scarce, unless you count illegal drug manufacture, which she’s trying to avoid. Her brother Burton lives on money from the Veterans Administration, for neurological damage suffered in the Marines’ elite Haptic Recon unit. Flynne earns what she can by assembling product at the local 3D printshop. She made more as a combat scout in an online game, playing for a rich man, but she’s had to let the shooter games go. Wilf Netherton lives in London, seventy-some years later, on the far side of decades of slow-motion apocalypse. Things are pretty good now, for the haves, and there aren’t many have-nots left. Wilf, a high-powered publicist and celebrity-minder, fancies himself a romantic misfit, in a society where reaching into the past is just another hobby. Burton’s been moonlighting online, secretly working security in some game prototype, a virtual world that looks vaguely like London, but a lot weirder. He’s got Flynne taking over shifts, promised her the game’s not a shooter. Still, the crime she witnesses there is plenty bad. Flynne and Wilf are about to meet one another. Her world will be altered utterly, irrevocably, and Wilf’s, for all its decadence and power, will learn that some of these third-world types from the past can be badass.

Compelling Science Fiction is a magazine created by people who believe that science fiction is important. Science fiction expands the mind and drives progress through inspiration. Our goal is to find and deliver great science fiction stories that are entertaining, inspiring, and extremely well thought out. Our stories tend to lean toward what is referred to as 'hard' science fiction, in the sense that we prefer stories that are self-consistent, scientifically plausible, and technically detailed when necessary. This first issue of Compelling Science Fiction contains five excellent stories:1. Lawrence Buentello's "Gaia's Children," an intense tale about planetary colonization.2. Aaron Wright's "Reflection," which gives a glimpse into the life of a sentient hospital.3. "Mean and Clean" by Marie DesJardin, a lighthearted look at a unique alien life-form.4. "Opportunities for Lost Children" by James Beamon, an interesting take on mind transference.5. "the Art of Failure" by Robert Dawson, an exhilarating first contact situation with a clever resolution.

The definitive pioneering blueprint covering the what, why and how of the blockchain. Blockchains are new technology layers that rewire the Internet and threaten to side-step older legacy constructs and centrally served businesses. At its core, a blockchain injects trust into the network, cutting off some intermediaries from serving that function and creatively disrupting how they operate. Metaphorically, blockchains are the ultimate non-stop computers. Once launched, they never go down, and offer an incredible amount of resiliency, making them dependable and attractive for running a new generation of decentralized services and software applications. The Business Blockchain charts new territory in advancing our understanding of the blockchain by unpacking its elements like no other before. William Mougayar anticipates a future that consists of thousands, if not millions of blockchains that will enable not only frictionless value exchange, but also a new flow of value, redefining roles, relationships, power and governance. In this book, Mougayar makes two other strategic assertions. First, the blockchain has polymorphic characteristics; its application will result in a multiplicity of effects. Second, we shouldn’t ask ourselves what problems the blockchain solves, because that gives us a narrow view on its potential. Rather, we should imagine new opportunities, and tackle even more ambitious problems that cross organizational, regulatory and mental boundaries. Drawing on 34 years of technology industry experience as an executive, analyst, consultant, entrepreneur, startup mentor, author, blogger, educator, thought leader and investor, William Mougayar describes a future that is influenced by fundamental shifts brought by blockchain technology as the catalyst for change. William Mougayar has been described as the most sophisticated blockchain business thinker. He is a blockchain industry insider whose work has already shaped and influenced the understanding of blockchain for people around the world, via his generous blogging and rigorous research insights. He is a direct participant in the crypto-technology market, working alongside startups, entrepreneurs, pioneers, leaders, innovators, creators, enterprise executives and practitioners; in addition to being an investor, advisor, and board member in some of the leading organizations in this space, such as the Ethereum Foundation, OpenBazaar and Coin Center. Just as the Internet created new possibilities that we didn’t foresee in its early years, the blockchain will give rise to new business models and ideas that may still be invisible. Following an engaging Foreword by Vitalik Buterin, this book is organized along these 7 chapters: 1. What is the Blockchain? 2. How Blockchain Trust Infiltrates 3. Obstacles, Challenges & Mental Blocks 4. Blockchain in Financial Services 5. Lighthouse Industries & New Intermediaries 6. Implementing Blockchain Technology 7. Decentralization as the Way Forward The Business Blockchain is an invitation for technologists to better understand the business potential of the blockchain, and for business minded people to grasp the many facets of blockchain technology. This book teaches you how to think about the blockchain.

“A perfectly executed, exquisitely reported parable of the Internet age and the wild, mad adventure that is start-up culture.”—Charles Duhigg Fortune, mania, genius, philanthropy—the bestselling author of Mountains Beyond Mountains gives us the inspiring story of Paul English, the founder of Kayak.com and Lola. Tracy Kidder, the “master of the nonfiction narrative” (The Baltimore Sun) and author of the bestselling classic The Soul of a New Machine, now tells the story of Paul English, a kinetic and unconventional inventor and entrepreneur, who as a boy rebelled against authority. Growing up in working-class Boston, English discovers a medium for his talents the first time he sees a computer. As a young man, despite suffering from what would eventually be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, he begins his pilgrim’s journey through the ups and downs in the brave new world of computers. Relating to the Internet as if it’s an extension of his own mind, he discovers that he has a talent for conceiving innovative enterprises and building teams that can develop them, becoming “a Pied Piper” of geeks. His innovative management style, success, and innate sense of fair play inspire intense loyalty. Early on, one colleague observes: “Someday this boy’s going to get hit by a truck full of money, and I’m going to be standing beside him.” Yet when English does indeed make a fortune, when the travel website Kayak is sold for almost two billion dollars—the first thing he thinks about is how to give the money away: “What else would you do with it?” The second thing he thinks is, What’s next? With the power of a consummate storyteller, Tracy Kidder casts a fresh, critical, and often humorous eye on the way new ideas and new money are reshaping our culture and the world. A Truck Full of Money is a mesmerizing portrait of an irresistibly endearing man who is indefatigable, original, and as unpredictable as America itself. Praise for A Truck Full of Money “Kidder’s prose glides with a figure skater’s ease, but without the glam. His is a seemingly artless art, like John McPhee’s, that conceals itself in sentences that are necessary, economical, and unpretentious.”—The Boston Globe “Kidder’s portrayal of living with manic depression is as nuanced and intimate as a reader might ever expect to get. . . . You can’t help admiring Mr. English and cheering for him.”—The New York Times

A guide to ending America's jobs emergency by accelerating the true engine of job creation―start-upsFour years after the end of the Great Recession, 23 million Americans remain unemployed, underemployed, or have left the workforce discouraged. Even worse, Washington policymakers seem out of ideas. Where the Jobs Are: Entrepreneurship and the Soul of the American Economy shows how America can restore its great job-creation machine. Recent research has demonstrated that virtually all net new job creation in the United States over the past thirty years has come from businesses less than a year old―true "start-ups." Start-up businesses create an average of three million new jobs each year, while existing businesses of any size or age shed a net average of about one million jobs annually. Unfortunately, the vital signs of America's job-creating entrepreneurial economy are flashing red alert. After remaining remarkably consistent for decades, the rate of new business formation has declined significant in recent years, and the number of new jobs created by new firms is also falling. In Where the Jobs Are, the authors recount the findings of a remarkable summer they spent traveling the country to meet and conduct roundtables with entrepreneurs in a dozen cities. More than 200 entrepreneurs participated―explaining in specific and vividly personal terms the issues, frustrations, and obstacles that are undermining their efforts to launch new businesses, expand existing young firms, and create jobs. Those obstacles include a dangerously underperforming education system, self-defeating immigration policies that thwart the attraction and retention of the world's best talent, access to capital difficulties, a mounting regulatory burden, unnecessary tax complexity, and severe Washington-produced economic uncertainty. Explains how start-ups are different from existing businesses, large or small, and why they represent the engine of job creationReveals how policymakers' failure to understand the unique nature and needs of start-ups has undermined efforts to stimulate the economy following the Great RecessionPresents a detailed, innovative, and uniquely credible 30-point policy agenda based on what America's job creators said they urgently needEngaging and informative, Where the Jobs Are reveals with unprecedented precision and clarity the major obstacles undermining the fragile economic recovery, and provides a vitally important game plan to unleash the job-creating capacity of the entrepreneurial economy and put a beleaguered nation back to work.

Practical advice from some of today's top early stage investors and entrepreneursTechStars is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator with operations in three U.S. cities. Once a year in each city, it funds about ten Internet startups with a small amount of capital and surrounds them with around fifty top Internet entrepreneurs and investors. Historically, about seventy-five percent of the companies that go through TechStars raise a meaningful amount of angel or venture capital. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup is a collection of advice that comes from individuals who have passed through, or are part of, this proven program. Each vignette is an exploration of information often heard during the TechStars program and provides practical insights into early stage entrepreneurship. Contains seven sections, each focusing on a major theme within the TechStars program, including idea and vision, fundraising, legal and structure, and work/life balanceCreated by two highly regarded experts in the world of early stage investingEssays in each section come from the experienced author team as well as TechStar mentors, entrepreneurs, and founders of companiesWhile you'll ultimately have to make your own decisions about what's right for your business, Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup can get your entrepreneurial endeavor headed in the right direction.

This inspiring memoir from sports and cultural icon Bill Walton recounts his devastating injuries and amazing recoveries, set in the context of his UCLA triumphs under John Wooden, his storied NBA career, and his affinity for music and the Grateful Dead. In February 2008, Bill Walton suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse—the culmination of a lifetime of injuries—that left him unable to move. He spent three years on the floor of his house, eating his meals there and crawling to the bathroom, where he could barely hoist himself up onto the toilet. The excruciating pain and slow recovery tested Walton to the fullest. But with extraordinary patience, fortitude, determination, and sacrifice—and pioneering surgery—he recovered, and now shares his life story in this remarkable and unique memoir. Walton grew up in San Diego in the 1950s and 1960s and was deeply influenced by the political and cultural upheavals of that period. Although he strongly identified with the cool people, particularly in music and politics, his greatest role model outside his family was super-straight UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, a thoughtful, rigorous mentor who seemed immune to the turmoil of the times. Although there was always tension and conflict between them, the two men would speak nearly every day for forty-three years, until Wooden’s death at age ninety-nine. Despite a lifelong stuttering affliction, Walton chose a career in broadcasting after his playing days ended. He eventually won an Emmy Award and other accolades for broadcasting and was recognized as a leading media pundit. John Wooden once said that no greatness ever came without sacrifice. Nothing better illustrates this saying than the real story of Walton’s life. In his own words, Back from the Dead shares this dramatic story, including his basketball and broadcasting careers, his many setbacks and rebounds, and his ultimate triumph as the toughest of champions.

Some people are meant to travel the globe, to unwrap its secrets and share them with the world. And some people have no sense of direction, are terrified of pigeons, and get motion sickness from tying their shoes. These people are meant to stay home and eat nachos. Geraldine DeRuiter is the latter. But she won't let that stop her. Hilarious, irreverent, and heartfelt, All Over the Place chronicles the years Geraldine spent traveling the world after getting laid off from a job she loved. Those years taught her a great number of things, though the ability to read a map was not one of them. She has only a vague idea of where Russia is, but she now understands her Russian father better than ever before. She learned that what she thought was her mother's functional insanity was actually an equally incurable condition called "being Italian." She learned what it's like to travel the world with someone you already know and love -- how that person can help you make sense of things and make far-off places feel like home. She learned about unemployment and brain tumors, lost luggage and lost opportunities, and just getting lost in countless terminals and cabs and hotel lobbies across the globe. And she learned that sometimes you can find yourself exactly where you need to be -- even if you aren't quite sure where you are.

Knowledge is power…and they know everything. NSA director Theodore Anders has a simple goal: collect every phone call, email, and keystroke tapped on the Internet. He knows unlimited surveillance is the only way to keep America safe. Evelyn Gallagher doesn’t care much about any of that. She just wants to keep her head down and manage the NSA’s camera network and facial recognition program so she can afford private school for her deaf son, Dash. But when Evelyn discovers the existence of an NSA program code-named God’s Eye, and connects it with the mysterious deaths of a string of journalists and whistle-blowers, her doubts put her and Dash in the crosshairs of a pair of government assassins: Delgado, a sadistic bomb maker and hacker; and Manus, a damaged giant of a man who until now has cared for nothing beyond protecting the director. Within an elaborate game of political blackmail, terrorist provocations, and White House scheming, a global war is being fought―a war between those desperate to keep the state’s darkest secrets and those intent on revealing them. A war that Evelyn will need all her espionage training and savvy to survive. A war in which the director has the ultimate informational advantage: The God’s Eye View.

"A tightly-woven tale of espionage and self-realization. Do yourself a favor and check out Neon Fever Dream." -Popular Science A dark secret hides in the swirling dust and exultant revelry of Burning Man. Asha Amarasuriya is bored and struggling to get by as a martial arts instructor in Oakland. When an enigmatic seductress offers her a golden ticket, Asha decides to take a leap of faith and head to Burning Man. But there is more than meets the eye at the infamous desert pilgrimage and Asha gets sucked into a quest to unravel a sinister mystery at the heart of Black Rock City. Will Asha and her friends survive to expose the shadowy conspiracy? By the time the Man burns, their lives will have changed forever.

Jesse’s first book was a #1 bestseller. It took him a year to write it. Hustle is different. It was written, produced, and published in just 7 days. The ridiculously short production schedule was meant to prove a point: focus + momentum = mindbending productivity. Don’t be fooled, though. The biggest opportunities in life don’t come from sprinting. They emerge over time through constant motion. A gritty, inspiring read, Hustle is the nudge we’ve all been waiting for. WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK: -- Young people trying to figure out how to succeed in our new, entrepreneurial economy -- Anyone bored with their routine, at work or home -- Entrepreneurs who are in it for the long haul -- Aspiring writers who are interested in learning how to produce a professional, high-quality book in seven days, and launch it in less than a month. -- Anyone who wants a jolt of inspiration, a reason to smile, a reason to work hard, a reason to keep hustling.