Moms working Full Time – the Norm not the Exception

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Since a picture’s worth a thousand words this blog post can be short.  Take a look at this chart from the US Department of Health and Human Services website:

Many, many American women to the tune of 10’s of millions are today working full-time while caring for their children under 18.  This number has increased nearly 50% in the last 40 years.

The attention drawn by the Anne Marie Slaughter piece and others are distracting people from this reality.  Most mothers “have it all”, not a mythical idealized “all” but a sleeplessly busy “all” of full-time work as a key breadwinner for the family and loving care of their children.  For many the work is fulfilling and enjoyable, for some it isn’t, just as it ranges for men.

Don’t be fooled by Atlantic headlines or even perhaps your social circle.  The question is not if but how.  And that’s where we should focus our energies – not in debating the “if” but in solving the “how”.  How can we make sure these parents and families live in a society and community that provides the structure and support needed for their health and happiness.

Happy Messy House Week

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In a past blog post I wrote about missing my daughter and even her messy room when she went off to college.

Well I got my wish completely last week – all four kids were home at the same time for eight days.  Other than a couple of days each for Todd’s wedding and Adam’s bar mitzvah this is the first time we had this happen in many years – perhaps since Derek left for college.  We were back in messy house mode and I loved it.

Most of the week was pretty low key as Derek was busy with his Stanford NeuroSurgery rotation and Todd was working on his Orthopedics research project during the day.  But, just having family dinner evenings with great conversation and some of the old favorite dishes was fun.  We missed having Jess and Emmanuelle with us though we had a fun weekend with Jess just the prior week – Emmanuelle was in the final throws of Surgery rotation so unfortunately she couldn’t be here.

One of the highlights was having Derek and Todd at Adam’s football scrimmage on Friday.  Adam went to virtually all of Derek and Todd’s football games over the years and of course he looks up to their football expertise.  Adam was beaming during the morning after play-by-play discussion.  I used the kids being home as an excuse to surprise Steve with a west coast 50th birthday party (we did one in NY in May).  We took over FuturePro batting cages for a baseball themed party with about 60 friends and family – lots of casual fun!

Derek and Todd went back east on Sunday but I can look forward to seeing them in just a week at my niece’s bat mitzvah in Nashville – thank goodness for lifecycle events.  Plus we have Margot another 2 weeks – enough time to do some damage, at Stanford Mall and Cafe Borrone

Learning to be a CEO

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There have been a couple of good posts recently about startup CEO’s serving on the boards of other startups.  Brad Feld wrote one and Mark Suster continued the thought here.

The logic is that you gain an independent and important perspective on many of the key activities you do yourself by serving on another board.  In particular Brad lists these advantages:

  • “You’ll extend your network. 
  • You’ll view a company from a different vantage point. 
  • You’ll be on the other side of the financing discussions.
  • You’ll understand “fiduciary responsibility” more deeply. 
  • You’ll have a peer relationship with another CEO that you have a vested interest in that crosses over to a board – CEO relationship. 
  • You’ll get exposed to new management styles. You’ll experience different conflicts that you won’t have the same type of pressure from.”

Of course the trick is balancing the additional time commitment with the CEO’s own responsibilities.

I have been lucky at SugarSync to have had a CEO/Entrepreneur on my board.  When I first got to SugarSync, Bud Colligan (cofounder of Macromedia) was a board member.  When he left we recruited Paula Long (cofounder of EqualLogic and now CEO of DataGravity) to the board.  They both have brought a great deal of sensitivity to both the practical and strategic as well as organizational issues and have given me great coaching.  They both had financial “skin in the game” but could take a broad strategic view.

I have not yet served on another startup company board but would look forward to that opportunity for the reasons above.  Because of their importance I have sought out other ways to get some of these experiences.  While it is natural to have peer colleagues at an executive level while working in a company the CEO has no natural peers in the company – you need to seek them out outside.  The first thing I did on this front, based on the advice of an experienced CEO friend and non-profit board colleague was to join an organization called Vistage.  I believe there are a few similar organizations that serve this purpose – I can only share my experience with this one.

Although there are other educational resources and coaching as part of Vistage, I find the core value comes in the monthly meetings with the CEO group.  There are about 15 members of the group – existing members make certain that when members join there is no potential business competition or other conflicts within the group.  The setting is confidential and discussions are moderated by the chairperson.  Our group is about half tech businesses and half from a range of industries from services to heavy equipment.  Over time the members learn enough about each other’s business to have a basic perspective.  After about an hour where each member gives an update there are about 2-3 hours where the group can process a handful of issues identified during the update.

It is incredibly helpful to have a dozen peers with no personal agenda such as their own role or financial investment help you process an issue, alert you to blind spots and share their diverse experiences and wisdom.  They are not expert in your business but have a wealth of experience managing boards, investors, M&A transactions, fundraising, dealing with lenders, personnel issues – many of the common challenges CEO’s face.  Of course the learning goes both ways – when listening to the discussion about another person’s issues – you learn about yourself and how you might deal with your own future challenges.

I’ve been fortunate to have a couple of other venues to network and share experiences with other CEO’s.  Two of my investors, Sigma Partners and DFJ both host annual CEO summits.  I’ve also formed an informal women tech CEO group – we have dinner every couple of months.  These groups don’t have the frequency or consistency of Vistage but the larger network is very valuable.

Developing my skills as a CEO has been a journey.  There’s no “manager” to train/teach me.  I’ve been learning from my board, my CEO peers, “expert” opinions I read such as blogs and mostly from my team.  I thank everyone who’s been patient with me and look forward to continuing to learn.

CEO Olympics

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Like many of you our family has enjoyed watching a bit of the Olympics.  While I’m usually not one to watch much TV in the evening I’ve enjoyed a few hours of watching the games.  My favorites are the gymnastics (both men and women) as well as anything else acrobatic – diving, jumping etc.  My least favorite is swimming and beach volleyball.  Despite the heavy “schmaltz” factor I also enjoy learning about the athletes, their personal stories and obstacles they’ve overcome.  I’m sure these are popular because many of us can find analogies to similar issues we’ve faced.  While we’re on the topic of analogies – I think there are many analogies between Olympic events and being a startup CEO here in the valley.  Apologies in advance for my corny sense of humor J

  • Hurdle – you can’t just run, there are constant obstacles that come your way.
  • Synchronized swimming – the whole team needs to be in sync on the plan and goals.
  • Balance Beam – tricky staying in balance between work and personal life.
  • Fencing – sometimes it feels like a lonely fight.
  • Uneven bars – you have to let go.
  • Volleyball – you aim high but sometimes you need to dive to sure your spot on the court is covered.  When you’re a CEO, you’re a team player but you also have specific duties.
  • Discus – sometimes it feels like your spinning in circles but that time can also be where you get your power and figure out the plan and then release.
  • Equestrian events – both men and women compete together and at a wide range of ages.
  • Long jump – leap stretch and even contort to get that last inch.
  • 10k – you must go fast but you need to do it for 25 laps
  • Archery – best to never lose sight of the bullseye.
  • Soccer – a full roster is 18 – business is a team sport of at least that many.

Mount Whitney – We Summited!

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On Sunday 7/29 our Aspen vacation ended and we traveled from Aspen via Denver and LAX (where we met up with Adam) then drove to Lone Pine.  A big driving day but uneventful.  We arrived in Lone Pine about 7PM and had a surprisingly excellent dinner at Seasons in Lone Pine.  Lone Pine is a dusty, desolate feeling “one traffic light” town so gourmet Elk in dried cherry sauce with a nice glass of Zinfandel was a pleasant surprise.  The Comfort Inn was, well, reasonably comfortable.

Since Lone Pine is at only about 3500 feet and Adam had not had the benefit of several days in Aspen I thought it would be good for he and I to do a warm-up hike at altitude.  We drove to Whitney Portal, the trail head for the Whitney Trail (8360’).  I also wanted to get a feel for the drive as well as the beginning part of the trail that we would be doing in the dark.  I was glad we would not be doing the lower part of the hike at mid-day as it was quite hot but the trail was well marked.July 31st , the day of our ascent finally arrived. Due to concerns about lightening (20% chance after noon) and not wanting to feel under time pressure we decided to start at 2:00 am rather than our original plan of 4:00.  We were underway close to plan at 2:15. Hiking in the dark with a headlamp was surprisingly easy.  At 90 lumens the headlamp completely lit up the trail.  And the dark meant the trail was pleasantly cool.  We came across several pairs of deers eyes glowingly looking at us.   We took our first break at Lone Pine Lake at the 2.5 mile mark.  After a short snack we resumed.  The sun started coming up between Mirror Lake and Trail Camp. Sunrise was really beautiful and serene.  To this point we had encountered very few people.We took our first major break at Trail Camp – 6 miles up.  We ate breakfast which for me was a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.  Hit the spot.  After resting about ½ hour we started purifying water for the 10 miles roundtrip to the summit.  It was a mistake to start this after our rest.  I bought a Steripen at REI which purifies a liter of water in 90 seconds.  We each started the hike carryng 5 liters of water and to refill needed to process about 10 liters.  Including getting the water from the lake and purifying that many times we spent about another 30 minutes.  Next time we would deal with water during the rest/snack.  Nevertheless we were more than halfway up both in terms of mileage and elevation and feeling pretty good.After Trail Camp comes the infamous “97 switchbacks”.  While climbing the switchbacks you have a real appreciation of the tremendous work that it took to build and maintain the trail.  The switchbacks, while they feel long, turn a steep technical face into a hard but manageable hike.  2.2 miles and 1700 feet later we reached Trail Crest.  Adam and I were feeling a bit out of breath and lightheaded so we took a rest and appreciated the 360 degree views.    Once I caught my breath (took a bit of time as we were at 13,777’) I realized that yes, I would make it to the top.  I could see it and while the last couple of miles were rocky I knew then it was doable.

The last 2.5 miles were slow.  While there is only a “net” 700’ gain left it is actually 1300’ as you gain and lose 300 along the trail.  The trail was rockier than below but always wide enough that the steep drop offs on the sides didn’t bother me too much. We reached the summit at 11:45am.  It was a real head rush – this time emotional when I looked down to the valley and saw what we accomplished.  We took a few pictures and signed the log book outside the shelter.  All together we spent about 45 minutes on top including a lunch break (second PB&J sandwich) an apple, some Anacin for a mild headache and lots of water.As we started down I realized that I had made a tactical error – either the altitude or the apple or the aspirin had made me nauseous.  This persisted until Trail Crest making the first 2 miles of the return the hardest part of the trip for me.   I chewed a couple of Pepto Bismol and finally felt ok by the time we started down the 97 Switchbacks.  I didn’t use them on the ascent but decided to use my hiking poles on the way down and found them quite helpful.  We were all totally out of water by Trail Camp.  This time we set to work purifying water right away.The final 6 miles from Trail Camp to the Portal was uneventful – just long.  By this point in time we were simply in tired achy feet mode.  Fortunately none of us were suffering from anything more acute – no injuries nor, amazingly, even blisters – just tiredness.  We made it to the trail head at 7:45pm – before sunset.  Total time –  17.5 hours.  I still can’t believe how long it took us but I suppose we really didn’t have a time goal, particularly on the descent once we were off the summit.

After we drove back to Lone Pine we stopped in a diner for a quick supper.   We were almost too tired to eat (but we managed) and the guys had milkshakes.  I treated myself to a very large diet coke – quite refreshing.

While the hike was hard I never came close to feeling like I couldn’t do it.  The months of training certainly paid off.  No part of the Whitney Trail was nearly as difficult as the tough parts of Mt. Tallac.  Between Tallac and easily completing the 16 miles of Static Peak at 13k feet I felt prepared.   During the drive home the three of us chatted about if we would want to do it again.  I could see going back to Whitney but might opt to do it over 2 days and camp at Trail Camp.  I think it would be more enjoyable if divided up.   I took about 85 pictures – far fewer than I planned.  For a good part of the hike down I think we just wanted to be done rather than appreciating the scenery – next time I’d like to be in a more observational mode.  I suppose the fact that we were even entertaining another visit after such a long day goes to show what a great experience it was.  Certainly a memorable one.

ICUC and Static Peak

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I had the opportunity to attend the “Internet Cowboys UnConference” in Jackson Hole last weekend.  This conference, hosted by Yuval Almog and Yossi Vardi brings together internet and media executives for a conference in the style of “FooCamp” with user generated topics and discussions.  There were great presentations by the likes of James Wolfensohn on the state of the world economy, Adriana Cisneros on the growing consumer market in Latin America and Arthur Sulzberger on the future of Journalism in the internet era.  I let a discussion on privacy in the cloud and there were many other interesting sessions ranging from online education to the physics of YouTube.

The conference sessions go from 2-10 pm leaving the morning for outdoor activities.  For me the choice of activity was a no-brainer.  Being in one of the most beautiful hiking spots in the world I couldn’t wait to get out in the mountains.  Two hikes were offered each day – hard and easy – I opted for the hard hikes.  The first day we took the tram up to the top of Teton Village – this is the main ski area when people talk about skiing Jackson Hole – highest single lift elevation gain in the US.  We hiked down a couple of thousand feet and back up.  Beautiful views and good chance to acclimatize to the elevation.  The second day a small group of us went to the Red and Lavender Hills in the Gros Ventre range.  Incredible views of the Tetons from the other side of the valley and great wildflowers.

I made a couple of comments to Daniel Almog that the “hard” hikes were not very hard and he invited me to join him and a few of his friends to hike Static Peak Sunday morning.  We would need to leave at 5:30 to get back for the conference program as it is an 18 mile hike.  The trail gains a total of 5300’ of elevation topping out at 11,303’.  I was a little worried – my hiking companions were four guys about 20 years younger than me and this was the longest hike with the most elevation gain I had ever done.

Fortunately the trail, while long, was quite smooth until the last few hundred meters of rocks.  (I’m seeing a pattern here of the peak sections being mostly boulders – Mt Tallac was the same).  The trail was incredibly scenic and and relatively few super steep sections.  I found it challenging but doable – I am glad to report I was not the last one to summit.  It was fun hiking with new people – we had many things to talk about – everything from religious arguments – liberal jew (me) v. orthodox (Udi) to how to distribute apps in the education market to favorite hikes and travel destinations.  Here are a few pictures from the trip.

View of Phelps lake about 1/3 of the way upAlmost to the top – just a few hundred meters of rocks with no trail.At the top with a view of Bucks PeakThis was my favorite vista – check out the lake high up!No pictures from the way down.  It’s called Static peak for a reason.  Right after we left the peak we heard cracks of thunder so we jogged the first couple of miles down to get to a safer location.  We finished the hike down at a normal pace – we did get a bit wet and my camera stayed in the pack but it did not put a damper on the day.

You Do What You Have to Do

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I’m thrilled to see Yahoo appoint Marissa Mayer as CEO.  I don’t know her personally but from what I’ve heard from her at various conferences I believe it she is a great choice.  I was at Yahoo from 2003 -2004 – Yahoo had already strayed from its product/customer experience roots and while not as apparent publicly was already internally confused as to priorities and inefficiently run – I was frustrated with this and left after a short time.  Mayer appears to be just the antidote to this problem.  This will be a huge step up for her – it is quite different to run a company rather than product divisions but we all have to jump in the deep end when we take those big steps forward and she seems to be quite the fast swimmer.

I wanted to comment on the various hand-wringing going on about her starting a job 6 months pregnant.  It sure feels like you can’t please anyone these days – her comment about her plans to just take a few weeks off is either going to damage her child or set a bad precedent for family leave in general.  I don’t believe either of these ideas are true.  The difficult thing for Mayer is that all of this happens in the public eye but from a practical matter it is the same for parents all over.

In my view this all boils down to the fact that you do what you have to do at the time.  If you are as loving and attentive to your child as possible and have a good support system things will be fine.  I have gone through this 4 times under varying circumstances.  My oldest son was born in the beginning of December during the second year of my masters program at Georgetown.  I had 4 final exams that semester.  I had already taken two then Derek was born the Monday after.  Then back to studying for my last 2 finals.  Todd was born a month after I started my first job at Informix.  I didn’t qualify for disability yet so I just could take 2 weeks of vacation.  Margot was born in June after I had been working for Informix for 5 years.  I enjoyed taking 8 weeks of maternity leave when she was born and since Adam was born right after I left Gupta I also ended up with about 8 weeks off.

Sure – it was very nice to be able to have a “normal” maternity leave with Adam and Margot – it was preferable to the short recuperation time I had with Derek and Todd but I don’t think they turned out any worse for the experience.  It was difficult for sure but I completed my exams and work and got through it with the support from my family.  I don’t think we are any less “bonded” then I am with the younger two and the memory of the stress of juggling work with a newborn has faded.

Of course timing isn’t always perfect to allow men as much time as they would like off either.  Our VP of Marketing Drew Garcia had his first daughter shortly after he joined SugarSync.  At the time he was our only person in Product Management and we were in the middle of a big release so he couldn’t take much time off.  Fast forward 2 years and he had two great employees who could cover for him when his second child was born giving him more flexibility.

Bottom line is a dedicated professional such as Marissa Mayer will get the job done, both professionally and personally.  I wish her, as is customary in Jewish culture, B’Shaah tovah!**

**B’shaah tovah – congratulations to an expectant mother (literal translation “in a good hour,” means “at an auspicious time,” i.e. may whatever time your child is born be a good time.”  Also the correct response to the announcement of a marriage engagement.  In both cases, it is in in anticipation of a “mazal tov” for something to hope for that has not yet occurred.

Mt Tallac

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As I wrote previously we’re trying to get in some longer more challenging hikes in preparation for Whitney. One of the goals is to hike at elevation – this requires some driving when you live at sea level.

Yesterday we hiked what I believe is one of the more spectacular hikes I’ve ever done – it is called Mount Tallac. The entrance is near the south shore of Lake Tahoe. It is about a 5 mile hike to the summit and gains about 3500 feet of elevation topping out at nearly 10,000 feet. Good overview of the hike is here.

The beginning of the trail is in the trees – gorgeous scent of pine and other parts of the forest. It is part of the “Desolation Wilderness” though it is definitely not desolated in the summer – we saw lots of hikers. Picture at the entrance About 2.3 miles in is Cathedral lake – pretty stop and Adam took a swim here on the way down.

The mile after Cathedral Lake is tough – very steep and difficult footing. In fact the footing on most of the trail is challenging – lots of loose rocks. About three quarters of the way up you are treated to this view:

Unfortunately you look up and still need to climb this part to get to the summit.The reward is great at the top – we took a long break and had a picnic lunch. I make a low-carb exception after a 5 mile climbs J.

The loose rocks made our descent a little slower than we expected but all in all a wonderful day. This is definitely going in the books as a must repeat hike.

Recent Reads

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I love to read but somehow startup life plus family and a bit of exercise thrown in gets in the way of reading as many books as I’d like.  A beach vacation like I had last week is a welcome exception to the pace.  I read four books – all quite different.

First was the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I love reading the books my kids are reading – it’s a great basis for conversation.  The premise of the book is very dark but I love the female hero.  Great summer beach type of book – super fast and fun read.Next up was You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett.  It is actually a collection of nine short stories.  He does an amazing job of bring tremendous depth and complexity to characters in this format.  The stories are fundamentally about the pain of mental illness.  A bit of a depressing topic as most of the stories were presented as fairly hopeless but the book is hauntingly compelling.  Many of the stories stick with you.  They left me with many questions.  How can we treat mental illness better.  What are the causes?  How do we treat the mentally ill in our midst yet how should we?  Hanslett deserves all of the praise and awards he received for this collection.I spent the most time then reading Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick.  I took several history classes and generally enjoy reading histories and biographies.  Somehow I had not read in this much depth about this part of early-colonial time.  The period is fascinating.  Not surprisingly, the Pilgrim – Indian – Thanksgiving story is way more complex and interesting then we were all taught in school.  The conditions the Pilgrims faced on everything from the voyage to the early days was harrowing and more than 50% died in the first 6 months.  The political skills of the original Pilgrims allowed them to live in peace with the Indians for their first half century in the US.  Interestingly racism took hold and obscured political subtleties on both Pilgrim and Indian side leading to the very bloody and long King Philip’s war.  All the familiar figures are there – William Bradford, Miles Standish, Pokanoket Indian chief Massoit, Squanto, and Edward Winslow, but Philbrick focuses on also on less celebrated figures like Benjamin Church and Massoit’s son Phillip who were key players.  Overall a good history that reads with the intrigue of a novel and exposes an often overlooked period of history.

Last on the list that I just finished up on the plane is David Kessler’s End of Overeating.  Kessler, a Pediatrician and Lawyer is formerly FDA commissioner under presidents Bush and Clinton and and was dean of Yale and then UCSF schools of medicine.  Refreshingly, this is a health book that is not trying to sell you something.  The premise of the book is that the food and restaurant industries put an incredible amount of fat+sugar+ salt in their food which conditions us to eat more and changes our brain circuitry leading to patterns of overeating and obesity.  There are examples of processing to make foods “hyperpalatable” with literally insane amounts of fat and sugar in the products.  He then talks about both theoretical and practical ways people can break out of the overeating habit.  Kessler’s writing style is good – and the book is organized in such as way that it flows well.  Given the epidemic levels of obesity and obesity-linked health problems I believe this is an important book to read.

Training Hike – Black Mountain Trail

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As part of our training for Mt. Whitney I’ve been working out regularly during the week – typically 5 miles before work – but we really need to get in some longer hikes to prepare.

Looking at the various Bay Area Hiker websites we found a great hike close to home called Black Mountain Trail.  It is 9.7 miles roundtrip with an elevation gain of 2420 feet.  By way of comparison – Whitney is 22 miles and about 6000 feet gain (and at altitude).  This hike has gorgeous views of Los Altos Hills in the beginning then the entire south bay area for the end of the hike.  The last mile, in particular, when out of the Oak tree area and in the chaparal has wide open incredible views – today you could see from downtown San Jose up to San Francisco. Near the peak is a set of tv/radio/cell towers.   At the peak you can also see west to the Pacific but today it was obscured by clouds.

We’re also trying out and getting used to our gear – day pack with 3+ liters of water in a Camelback and hiking boots.  My pack was very comfortable – my boots not so much.  No blisters, just achy feet – kind of like after skiing.  Unfortunately I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to better my situation.  I tried a bunch of boots from REI and Zappos (many don’t come in my size since my foot is a 5.5 but none were better.  I plan to also bring my running shoes and wear those for part of the hike.  I tried hiking with poles a couple of weeks ago – I found them sort of a nuisance – but based on many recommendations to use them I will give them another try.

In terms of muscle fatigue and aerobic capacity – I felt pretty good at the end of the hike – could have gone longer except for my feet.  Next weekend we’re going to go up to Kirkwood to do a 15 mile hike – that one will be at altitude.  Not as high as Whitney Portal but close – that should give us a much better sense of how ready we are.

Back to my weekday routine tomorrow – I will try to add in some evening bike rides – with the late sunset I might actually get out of work on time to do that.