Author: bijansabet

I have been completely taken by the podcast series Wind Of Change. It an 8 part podcast that reveals the CIA’s hand in the 90’s hit single, Wind of Change by the German rock band, Scorpians. Rolling Stone has a story about this podcast and how it all happened. I highly recommend giving it a listen. Unfortunately, the series is only available on Spotify instead of the open internet, thankfully it’s not behind a Spotify paywall.

Listening to the song and the podcast and it’s easy to understand how and why this one song became the rallying cry for hope and freedom during the end of the Cold War.

Music has that power.

We all know the impact of music in our own country during the Civil Rights era. Music intertwined with civic activism. It served to release our frustration. Our desire to reject the status quo. To breathe hope into life. To aspire, connect, and push for something better for the nation and the world.

Of course, there is a meaningful contrast between the CIA backed Scorpian single and Bob Dylan, CCR, Same Cooke, Nina Simone and others. These 1960s protest artists wrote songs from the heart that gave voice to hope and change.

Music has that power. And I can imagine protest music coming back to our lives as we face enormous challenges at this moment.

Kyoto, Phoebe Bridgers

Last week my oldest daughter turned 21. We decorated the basement into a “club” and threw her a party—just the five us in the family. We drank too much alcohol, made TikToks, played beer pong, and had a delicious, yet simple dinner.

A few months ago, if I had told her that was how she was going to ring in her 21st birthday, she would have been pretty disappointed. She didn’t see her friends. She didn’t go to her favorite restaurant. She didn’t even get to use her ID to get served at a real bar.

But that evening she told us it was a perfect birthday.

These days are riddled with stress, frustration, and sadness. But they have also provided a sense of gratitude like never felt before.

I have been taking steps to improve my set up for home video calls.

My friend and business partner Nabeel suggested I download Webcam Settings to add some powerful controls to my existing webcam. The app performs as advertised and I was able to make some modifications to exposure, backlighting, contrast and zoom effects.

I am very happy I took his advice. Big improvement.

You Can’t Put Your Arm Around A Memory, Billie Joe Armstrong

original by Johnny Thunders

Just some misc musings for today’s post…

One of the biggest global stories that broke today is that China misled the global community with regards to their COVID outbreak. I worry other nations will follow this example which is very scary.

I also worry about businesses that rely on public health information as they evaluate their decisions. Consider Apple re-opened up their China stores a few weeks ago no doubt based on positive (fictional) signs from the Chinese government.

As follow up to my ongoing guitar lesson/practice post, I canceled my Youscian subscription. I really couldn’t handle the content & design even though the instruction was pretty good.

My new guitar tutor is basically YouTube and a subscription to Ultimate Guitar. There are a ton of guitar lessons on YouTube. I learn the basics from watching a YT video and then I find the corresponding sheet music for the song on Ultimate Guitar for daily practice. It’s really great.

I’ll end this post with a link to a TikTok of me and my daughter. I am likely going to regret posting this in the future but for now if it will bring a smile or two to others then I’m good. And these days I’m pretty much doing anything my kids ask me to do, regardless of how embarrassing it is.

Stay well.

Life in Quarantine, Benjamin Gibbard

new track from ben. somber and yet beautiful.

I’m a bit pressed for time this morning but I thought I would share some of the advice I am giving to entrepreneurs as they deal with our crisis.

1/ Survive. This is the theme of our entire collective at the moment but in the startup world it is a central organizing principle. I have heard some investors suggest a broad/general overview that goes something like this:

-assume Q2 is a wipeout revenue-wise
-assume Q3 is 30% of your original plan
-assume Q4 is 50% of your original plan for the year.

This may not be appropriate for every startup but more likely than not it will be the closer to reality than we want to believe. Please note: no one is going to blame you for overreacting or having a poor 2020 year from a revenue standpoint. Everyone’s numbers will look horrible. You just need to get through the year.

2/ Be generous. Unfortunately many startups are only offering 2 weeks severance. For startups with challenging balance sheets, that might be the best they can do. But if you can do better, then do better. Also, significantly extend the employee stock options exercise window for laid off employees from the standard 90 days to something dramatically longer.

3/ Be healthy. I’m still hearing of CEOs and execs returning to the office to get stuff done. For the most part, I don’t think this is a wise or healthy choice. The better choice is to stay home, set a good example for your employees and focus on your employees well being,  your customers, your culture. You most likely do not need to go to the office right now. Eat healthy, get proper sleep, and get daily exercise. Grinding yourself 24×7 right now won’t scale. And this is definitely not a fucking sprint.

4/ Be kind. Your team, your board, your employees are all on hyper edge right now. They are seeing bad news throughout most of their day. We are all going through it. We need to cut each other a bunch of slack for a salty comment or honest mistakes. And most of all we need to be kind to ourselves.

Unfortunately all of this will get worse before it gets better. And it will take longer than we all desire. There is no simple playbook, or magic wand or silver bullet for these times. This is when we all dig in to the best of our abilities and show up.

We will get through this.

A special note to all the founders in the Spark family: I know I speak for all of my partners when I say we are beyond very grateful for your leadership, hard work and commitment. These are unprecedented times and my words can’t possibly express our gratitude and empathy right now.