I had the pleasure of being invited to a dinner organized by the Princeton University Center for Economic Policy Studies (CEPS) where George Soros spoke on the current economic crisis. I very much enjoyed the cocktails before the dinner where I reconnected with Alan Blinder and Harvey Rosen who had ...

I saw William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale last Thursday at the BAM in Brooklyn and loved it. The play is one of BAM’s “Bridge Projects� bringing together talent from London and New York. The play is masterfully produced under the direction of Sam Mendez of American Beauty fame. I loved...

I had the pleasure of being invited to a New Media dinner at Strauss Zelnick’s apartment in New York. It was a fantastic opportunity to reconnect with old Internet friends and to meet a slew of interesting characters. Jason Hirschhorn formerly from Sling Media was easily the funniest person in the...

I truly loved Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book on exceptional people. He argues that the largest reason those people succeeded is not because of their specific character traits but because they successfully combine hard work (specifically 10,000 hours of deliberate practice) with the many hidden adv...

Even though I have been to China many times in the past 14 years, my last trip to Beijing dates back to 1994. I was already fascinated by the economic reforms China was undertaking and wanted to live them firsthand as opposed to writing about them from my ivory tower in Princeton. I decided to spend...

On Tuesday, I had the privilege to attend an interview with Tom Stoppard at BAM by David Remnick, an editor at the New Yorker. The event epitomized what I love about New York – an erudite audience, an amazing setting, and brilliant presentation. Stoppard was quintessentially Stoppard – extremely...

I can’t believe I coined a movie the best superhero movie ever twice in the same year, but here goes: The Dark Knight is the best superhero movie edging out Ironman! Ironman is extremely high quality entertainment, but it does not transcend the typical super-hero movie. Batman is much more than a ...

Imagine a more dramatic Marley and Me written from the dog’s perspective and you get The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. A friend of mine picked it up at Starbucks and said I had to read it. He was right! As a dog lover and owner and a fan of Formula 1 racing, I connected with the book. ...

One of my readers mentioned that he was also reading Dick Costolo’s blog on entrepreneurship and found it extremely useful. I just checked it out and it’s fantastic. The articles are well written and thought through. He’s also a lot more focused on entrepreneurship than I am, thoug...

I first met Sonico at BarCamp in Buenos Aires last September. They were by far the most interesting company. Alec and I met Rodrigo, the CEO, and his team in person a few days later and we were blown away. It’s hard to put my finger on what it was exactly, but they just got it. They were fantastic...