A quick checkpoint as I pass the finish line of another trip around the sun...

Mark Cuban's 12 rules for startups.  Many of these are pretty cliche, but I like #12: Make the job fun for employees.  As you know I think "fun" are the things which make you feel good about yourself, so this translates to make your employees' jobs make them feel good about themselves.  A great goal. 

Now on YouTube: Richard Feynman, no ordinary genius.  Excellent. 

A lot of people have Feynman stories, I have two.  First, he played bongo drums at my parent's wedding.  (My Dad was a postdoc at Caltech at the time, back in 1957.)  Second, when I was a freshman at Caltech, Feynman was still there but no longer actively teaching.  One day everyone was notified the next freshman physics lecture will not be in the usual room, instead, it will be in <the largest teaching theater at the school>.  The rumors began ... Feynman is giving a guest lecture!  Sure enough, he was.  The room was filled, not only with undergraduates but with graduates and postdocs and professors and administrators.  He was a *great* speaker; interesting, funny, and enthusiastic.  His subject was Special Relativity, and walking out of the two hour lecture I actually felt that for the first time I *truly* understood this arcane concept, not only enough to solve test problems, but enough to think about it.  That feeling passed quickly and by the next day I was back to mere mortal status as a physics student, but I'll never forget that feeling of epiphany.  He was most definitely no ordinary genius.

The super simple phone hack that will transform your productivity.  Spoiler: turn off notifications.  Seems ... hmmm ... that I've heard that advice before, somewhere... 

Seth Godin has a new book out: What to do when it's your turn.  "This is an urgent call to do the work we're hiding from, a manifesto about living with things that might not work and embracing tension when doing your art."  Cool!  Cannot wait to read it... 

Onward, let the next trip begin...