Is It About Women?

70% of the recipients of micro loans end up being women. Because the vast majority of the world's poor are women. It is not because they don't work. Women do all the work at home and much of the work on the farms in all those poor countries. So why are they the bulk of the poor? Sexism pure and simple.

I have said my corporate team is going to be majority female. If the vast majority of your customers are going to be women, it only makes sense to have a team that is majority women.

So is it about women for me? Am I some kind of a raging feminist?

No. Yes and no.

Patti Smith: Dancing Barefoot

(Via Soraya Darabi)

Goldfrapp: Believer

(Via Soraya Darabi)

Pink Floyd: Money

(Via Mark Birch)

Brooklyn Loves Bollywood

Bollywood Loves Brooklyn
Bollybrook

I was just on the phone with Anne Marsen. She is the woman in the video.


Bachna Ae Haseeno (BollyBrook Remix) from Anne Marsen on Vimeo.

She was a friend of a friend of Nick Gray who happened to be in Mumbai. So one day Nick calls and talks about his idea for the music video. Would she do it?

My Non Personhood Of 2009, 2010

2009 and 2010 have been my years of roaming the tech circles of this city and avid tech blogging. I have done so as a non person. Tech felt safer than politics.

I have roamed. I have done so as a window shopper. I have not had the option to participate. It's called being in an immigration mess. For the rest it might have been the Great Recession, for me it was the Great Immigration Humiliation.

I was done raising 100K for my IC startup - that was the stated goal - months before the 2008 primaries were over, but I decided to be with Barack just a few more months. The primary was the only real contest. November was a no contest, it was so obvious to me. I had been his first full time volunteer in the city. I was in before he announced he was in.

But my political enemies came after me. The day the primaries ended, I disappeared. They had me disappear. The establishment picked that precise day lest I missed the message.

One day early in 2009, in March perhaps, maybe April, I went to see someone at Columbus Circle. We had met online, we had met, and we were going to meet again. I had two dollars in my pocket. That is all the money I had. I did not have any money back home. I did not have a bank account, let alone money in a bank account. I did not have a credit card. And I could not have walked back home. I would not have known the way. I did not have a phone. I did not have a metro card.

I remember thinking, if I lost those two dollars, I could not get back home.

Just Became A Cofounder
Sean Parker, Billionaire, Was Really Poor Once
Permanent War

Bollywood Loves Brooklyn

Bachna Ae Haseeno (BollyBrook Remix) from Anne Marsen on Vimeo.

SMS Power

This is really, really powerful to me. This is a small example. But this has huge implications.

If you still doubt GroupMe's potential, just watch this video.

SMS Powered Garage Door

Coachella (4)

The Possible Anatomy Of A Dumplings Crawl

Limit the number to 10. Only 10 people allowed. If there are more than 10 people, they can still go for a crawl, but it is going to have to be crawl number two.

Do it in Chinatown. That is a central location. People from all over the city can hope to participate. If it is going to be more than one group on the same day, coordinate such that no one restaurant is visited twice by all groups combined.