Monthly Archives: October 2005

Can the Youth in Iran Cause Regime Change?

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There are 45 million youth in Iran who have been trained their whole lives to be anti-Western; to believe there is only one God and Muhammed is his Prophet; that God knows what’s best for men and women; and that the Islamic clergy know best what God wants.

This The New York Review of Books article explores some of the gentle but innovative rebellion tactics of Iranian youth. A movement to overthrow a repressive regime will be far more successful if it bubbles up from disenchanted youth than if the U.S. tries military overthrow. Teens over there have a surprisingly positive view of America, but it’s also more complex than simple admiration.

What can young people in the West do to aid our peers overseas who dream of an open society?

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The New Science of Feeling Good

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Link: So what do you have to do to find happiness? – Health features – Times Online.

A long but interesting piece in the British Times Online about the latest science in happiness. Some things I already knew – like of the six primal emotions only one of them makes you happy and when you are happy you can think faster and more creatively. Some new tidbits – the hedonic treadmill means we will never be satisfied with our possessions and accomplishments, and the difference between men and women in how they convey emotions.

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A Socrates Cafe/Active Minds Group for Biz/Tech Folks? Feedback, Please

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After five years in the Silicon Valley I posit that:

a) business and technology folks are deprived of intellectual stimulation outside their narrow specialty;

b) not exercising those liberal arts mental muscles (maybe since college?) will hurt them competitively in a world increasingly emphasizing the intersections ;

c) there are many smart business and technology people who would like to explore new intellectual domains but do not have an easy way to take the risk of venturing outside their mental comfort zone.

There is one category of people who say to themselves, "If I’m a business entrepreneur, why waste time thinking about philosophy (or political science, or any other intellectual topic) when I could read more business books and try to learn about the latest and greatest management strategy?" These people are usually not very interesting.

Then there are those people who realize that executives should read more non-business books and living at the intersections is more important than total specialization in one domain (be in software, venture capital, what have you). These are people who – through their blog or otherwise – want to explore the life of the mind and have intelligent conversations about psychology, philosophy, history, sociology, science, and so forth.

Chris Phillips started a revolution a few years ago with his book Socrates Cafe and his Society of Philosophical Inquiry organization, which tries to set up informal Socratic dialogues in coffee shops around the country. I’d like to do something similar for folks in the high tech/start up scene to perhaps read a common book and then gather in-person to discuss and have a lively dialogue. A common bond among everyone grow from the similar background, but I suspect people will bring different perspectives to issues we don’t usually talk about.

I’ve traded emails with my friend Chris Yeh about this (he says his blog is the one thing he can do to get closer to his Stanford days of pure intellectual stimulation). Thoughts? Feedback? Reactions? Will an explicit focus away from business turn off or turn on? Thanks.

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Google and Corporate Philanthropy

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Google announced today that Google.org will be launching soon, following through on their promise to launch and philanthropic arm of the company. Clearly, this is good news and the Google Foundation will help (and already has helped) millions of people. But I have a few concerns:

  • Timing – Where was this a few years ago? It’s important for integrated corporate philanthropy to be woven into a company’s mission from the start. The status quo cannot be "once we have our IPO and make billions, we’ll start donating to charity."
  • Focus – So far they are giving a few million here and a few million there. From the Make a Wish Foundation to Doctors Without Borders. A total of 850 different nonprofit organizations have already received grants. Will they be able to monitor the social impact across all these different areas? Will there be a guiding social mission of the Foundation? In many ways this mirrors the for-profit business….
  • Staffing – They’ve already given away millions of dollars, but they say "We are working on staffing as well as defining the goals, priorities, and principles of Google.org." Wait – don’t you do that BEFORE giving away the money? Who’s overseeing the follow-through of the grants?

Again, this is fundamentally a *great* thing, but I also think we want to hold non-profits to a higher standard than simple applause for doing good. Particularly when it’s a philanthropic arm of a for-profit corporation, there is no excuse to not run a tight, results-oriented organization. This means getting the right people on the bus before driving it and making sure each dollar is accounted for.

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The Next Generation: Leaders or Followers? Entrepreneurs or Cogs?

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I file this under "Entrepreneurship" because this is a cause about which I’m most passionate: life entrepreneurship. In particular, what the effects of a micromanaged generation is on tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and agents of change. David Brooks, in his blog available for TimesSelect users, responds to a reader’s question about this. He says "watch for the mid-life crisis." Indeed.

Link: Brooks – NYT Web Journal.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about whether we are raising a generation of followers, not leaders. The University of Michigan does studies of how children spend their time. The results show that since 1986, we have been raising the most supervised generation of children in history. Kids spend less and less time just hanging around or inventing their own games, and more and more time in adult-supervised skill-enhancing activities.

They spend between a third and a fifth less time hanging around the neighborhood and between a third and fifth more time going to soccer practice, oboe practice, S.A.T. prep and what have you.

College professors frequently tell me that they wish students would challenge them more. On the other hand there’s clear evidence that children are getting along much better with their parents. In short, it’s a lot less cool to be a rebel. Will this lead to a population of lemmings? Frankly, I don’t see that in the young people around me. The hippies, when you get down to it, were pretty conformist in their own way.

Will they on the other hand, suffer from the biggest mid-life crisis of any generation in history once they get tired of work and being good? Watch for it. Should be fun.

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