L A Z E R O W . COM

Goodbye Hello Martin

I landed in San Diego this Tuesday, powered up my phone and scanned my emails. One of them was from Martin Schaedel, a wacky friend I met last year.

Responding to my tweet about being in LA later in the week, Martin wrote, "Ok here tomorrow in case I can treat you to a coffee or dinner." Despite being swamped in meetings in LA, we were planning to get together for a drink.

I sent Martin a text last night, telling him a bunch of us were hanging out at our hotel. He usually responded in less than 2 minutes. I didn't hear back. Little did I know that Martin had died a few hours earlier as a small plane he was flying in crashed and burst into flames at Santa Monica airport just a few minutes away.

Martin was mysterious. He boasted of knowing former heads of state, traveling the world constantly and late nights hanging out at Sundance, the Victoria Secret fashion show and more. He also was constantly on the look out for new deals -- trying to open a hotel, buying Playboy or peddling Facebook shares to his asian investor friends. After meeting him for the first time I wrote Fred Wilson, "Interesting guy. Kinda like a blond electron. Wow."

On Tuesday, I received 3 other emails from Martin. All three of them were extremely relevant introductions to people I didn't know but should know have. That's the way he was. He made introductions for no other reason than he liked to connect people and be connected himself.

Martin also liked to take pictures of people he met, almost as if he were a reporter documenting his life for future generations. Included in his photo stream were pictures of entrepeneurs, CEOs, VCs and, yes, even me.

The truth is that I barely knew the guy. He floated in and out of New York and stopped by my office every time he was in town. We would talk about business, ideas and life (he seemed to be very fascinated with how I ran a company and had 3 kids in NYC). And of course I would get at least 5 introductions within a day of the meeting.

At our last dinner together earlier this month at Matsuri in Chelsea, Martin said he wanted to come over and play with the kids. Unfortunately that never happened as the kids would have probably loved him.

Martin was a young (23), bright, fearless light that was turned off way to early. He represented all that is great about the internet and the internet business -- fun, connected, innovative and promising and all with a dash of ADD.

I'm glad I got to know Martin. I'm sad that he's gone. But I hope his spirit lives on through the many, many people he knew and brought together in life and death.

(More obits can be found here: LA Times, Fred Wilson and Twitter.)

A wonderful message from Myles

So I'm traveling now. SF yesterday. SD tonite. LA tomorrow and Thursday. I used to like traveling for work. But sometime between our first kid and third, I fell out of love with traveling for work. I'm a creature of habit. I like to be home. I like to be around Kass and the kids. I like working from my office. But running a business requires selling, meeting, partnering and that's why I'm on the road.

After a ton of meetings, a speaking engagement yesterday and another one tonite, I'm exhausted. I haven't slept past 4 AM for the past 2 days and I have another 3:45 AM wake up call tomorrow so I can get to LA for meetings.

In the middle of this craziness, I got this message from Myles. (Click on the link to listen to it). It lifted me up. Made me smile. And turned around my road trip. Thanks Myles! I'm posting it here so we both can listen to it for years to come when we need a lift.

Teach your kids to hit and play video games

Parents often look at me weird when I tell them that I think kids should learn to hit and to play video games. They disagree, often violently. One parent called me misguided. Many others have called me much worse.

My reasoning is simple.

The kid who gets hit and hits back harder never gets beat up again. The kid who gets hit and beat up gets beat up again and again. I saw it over and over again going to Landon School for Boys (and the socially challenged, testosterone-fueled, lacrosse-wielding misfits) in Bethesda, Md.

I don't think kids should be taught to hit first or to be the aggressor. But if you get hit, make a tight fist and hit back as hard as you can in the center of the aggressor's chest. And twist your first slightly upon impact to make it hurt a little more.

Now video games.

By the time Myles (7 years old) enters the work force, all interfaces will be video gamey. He will have touch screens, 3D interfaces and will be expected to navigate them all. Learning video games early, as Myles has done, will help him adapt and succeed in that environment. Also, I'd much rather my children play video games during their screen time than sit back and watch TV. Playing Wii and Nintendo DS makes them interact, think, use their limbs and fingers and develop their eye-hand coordination. TV doesn't do this.

So given my penchant for hitting and TV, I was thrilled ro receive the following email yesterday from my good friend, Danny Roth, a senior writer from Wired Magazine. "Laz, When you get a chance," Dan wrote, "you've got to read this article from NY Mag in 1972
on playgrounds where hitting is actually encouraged." (Dan stumbled upon it at Daddytypes.com.)

Zane Kotker writes in the June '72 issue of New York Magazine, "Aggression is a fact of life, according to our ethic, and we bring children to the playground partly to wean them from the kindly benevolence of home."

This spirit encourages kids to work it out, to navigate the positive and negative interpersonal encounters on their own. These are skills that you either learn, or get run over later in life.

Kotker writes about her own worldview, developed as her kids played in Riverside Park, "We support a high-aggression, high-sharing ethic that ties in with an over-all psychological orientation at the playground, maintaining that a kid should develop self-expression by expressing himself. So we don't intervene until we hear the cries of pain."

Quite simply, teaching a kid to always share and always be nice, no matter what the circumstance, is doing the kid a disservice. He will be beat up often, his possessions will be borrowed (i.e. stolen) and he will have the self-confidence of a peanut (without the shell!).

I'm sure many of you are going to argue with me about my positions. But before you comment and waste both our time, please know two things: (a) My 4-year-old Cole can beat the shit out of any of your kids (and possibly you as well); and (b) Myles will beat you speechless in Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Smash Brothers and Star Wars Wii.

Stop the galas, start the grunt work

The last week has been one of hope, transition, change and optimism. President Obama gave no less than 10 speeches, ending with yesterday's inauguration speech.

The country needed something to celebrate. I can't think of one positive national event that brought the country together over the last 8 years. The only times the country united were when terrorists attacked, Bush attacked others, airplanes crashed and dictators were captured. Not exactly feel good moments.

The celebrations were nice. But enough. It's time to get to work. The real work won't happen in speeches and proclamations, galas and roundtables. It will happen on the front lines. It's the grunts who make things happen and it's the grunt work that will lead us out of this mess.

From the time you decide to start a business to the time you sell the business, each day is a series of tasks. Incorporation, hiring, accounting, selling, following up, communicating. It's just grunt work. But the grunt work adds up and the better you are at getting the small things done, the daily tasks, the better you are at running and growing a company.

In business, ideas are important. But execution, the series of thousands or millions of daily tasks that aggregated together make up the company's output, is the real difference between success and failure.

The same holds true for government work. So on a national level, President Obama needs to make sure the grunt work at the treasury and justice departments, the EPA and SEC, gets done. Start small, win the daily battles, and see the fruits of the labor in 4 years.

On a personal level, each of us needs to focus on what we can do today to move our lives forward. What are the small tasks, the daily grunt work at home and work, that we can accomplish?

It's been fun celebrating the Obama presidency. Now let's stop the celebrity gazing and gala following and get the grunt work done.

Just do your job

Today is the day we've been waiting for for at least 8 years -- the end of the Bush BADministration, and with it the end of incompetence, ineptitude, ideology-based decision making and criminal conduct in the executive branch.

And of course, it's the beginning of Obamanation. I join everyone in hoping for a fresh start, new ideas and the restoration of decency.

Barack Obama set the tone yesterday by calling Americans to use Martin Luther King Jr. Day to perform community service. Obama did his best (even though it was clearly a photo opp) by helping fix up a homeless shelter for teenagers in Washington, D.C.

At the shelter, he made a simple but powerful comment: "If everybody did their job, whatever that job was, as well as that pilot did his job, we'd be in pretty good shape."

What a novel idea -- just do your job!

Bush didn't do his job. He made bad decision after bad decision and failed to uphold any of the promises he made while running for the office.

The banks didn't do their job. Lending money to subprime borrowers for the past decade wasn't doing their job.

Walter Noel didn't do his job. His clients entrusted him with $7 billion. The schmuck gave it all (only $7 billion!!!!) to Bernie Madoff, even after he boasted of his intense due diligence process, and happily took his $150 million in fees.

The leaders of the SEC, EPA, FDA, VA and other government agencies didn't do their job. Investors, the environment, patients, veterans and others got hosed.

Doing your job is basically agreeing to do what you say, at work, at home and in your interpersonal relationships. When you take a job, the contract is very simple -- you agree to do something (either specific or general based on the job) and you get paid money. As long as you do your job, you'll get paid.

At home, it's a little more vague. When jews get married, they sign a Ketubah, a marriage contract. The Ketubah traditionally lays out the man's job, specifically to provide food, clothing and shelter to the wife, and a settlement if there's a divorce. Clearly doing your job now involves much more than that.

Over the past 8 years, we've lost the sense of responsibility, the sense of doing your job. Easy money, easy credit, short-term gain in exchange for long-term pain, immediate gratification became the norm.

It's time to get back to the basics. Let's take Obama's very simple advice. Just do your job and we'll all be in pretty good shape.

Here's a clip from the AP of Obama at the shelter:

VIDEO: Ryan Clark hit on Willis McGahee

This is why football players make a ton of money. They better make it when they can because of the ridiculous toll their bodies take.

TARP: A complete fleecing of America $$$

$350 billion of our money has been given to banks to lend to consumers and small businesses to prop up the nation's economy. Or so we were told. Right?

But an analysis by Mike McIntire at the New York Times reports that very cash has made its way to the intended recipients.

"A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that few cited lending as a priority," McIntire reports. "An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future."

All I have to say is WHAT THE FUCK? I would have loved a few million dollars in free, no stings attached loans, to buy a business or two, fuel further technology development or hire 10 more sales people.

This is further proof of the ineptitude of anyone in government (and definitely everyone in the Bush BADministration) to understand what needs to be done about the economy. And even with these free government handouts, the largest banks are no closer to safety, as we learned last week.

What BLOWS ME AWAY is the fact that banks are not required to specify a proposed use nor disclose what they actually do with the money. Total bullshit - unless you are one of the banks.

Walter M. Pressey, president of bank-for-the rich Boston Private Wealth Management, told the New York Times that the bank had no immediate plans to use the $154 million it received from YOU, the US TAXPAYERS.

“With that capital in hand, not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession,” he said, “but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”

This is outrageous. I'm not smart enough to understand what should be done (pls read Roger Ehrenberg for some great ideas). But I'm pretty sure that this will go down as a giant and complete fleecing of America. These banks weren't looking out for the country. As expected, they were looking out for their own vaults.

In the next few weeks the Obama administration decides how to allocate the other half of the TARP funds and additional stimulus spending. Hopefully they are able to focus on impactful programs that affect the intended consequences rather than line the pockets of individuals and companies.

As Fred Wilson wrote yesterday, "It's time for america to be a little more selfless. We've seen what the greed/me first approach has resulted in. And it sucks. We have to put our own individual needs and desires aside just a little bit and think about what the best projects are."

A gift of health (and happy birthday Kass!)

I asked Kass earlier this month what she wanted for her birthday. She thought about it and emaild me "U r not heathy and this is what I want for my bday."

During Myles' pregnancy, I ate with Kass and gained about 15 pounds. I went from 185 to 200. In February 2002, we started a program and together Kass and I ate really well, worked out hard and I got down to a healthy 175, the lowest I have been since college.

Since then, I've gained it all back over time. As of yesterday, I was 198. This isn't aweful for a 6'2'' man. But it's not idea for someone with an artificial valve. .

Before I go on, let me tell you that it's not my fault that I weigh so much. If the food in New York weren't so delicious, I wouldn't each so much of it!

So my birthday present to Kass, myself and my kids is to get back to my fighting weight of 175 by my birthday in April and with it, my health me.

How am I going to do it? I'm going to do it the same way I lost the weight in 2002. It's rather easy and I wanted to share it with everyone.

First, 90 percent is diet. So watch what you eat -- what you eat, specifically, and when you eat it. The key is to keep your metabolism cranking and the only way to do that is to eat smaller meals more often.

I'll be eating 5-6 meals a day - basically a meal or snack every three hours. Every meal will contain protein and most of the meals before 3 PM will contain what I call good carbs. These are natural, unprocessed carbs. Carbs that your body can easily digest and give you energy.

My favorite good carbs are sweet potatos, oatmeal and brown rice. I'm sure there are many others but these are a stable for me. I actually like to have a sweet potato for breakfast as it gives me the energy I need for the rest of the  morning and they taste great.

Another staple is protein shakes. I buy whey protein shakes from my local health store. All natural and organic shakes are preferred. The key is that you want to maximize the protein/carb ratio and the higher the ratio the better. My current shake has 12g of protein per shake to 1g of carbs. Each scoop is 100 calories and I usually mix 2 scoops in water for one or two of my "meals" each day.

The last staple is animal protein, preferably lean protein, and natural fats (olive oil especially). Your body needs the fat and protein to function. Don't go low fat. Cut out the bad fats but keep the good ones. Keep the meat, chicken and fish. Other snacks in this category are nut butters, tofu anything and nuts.

So my typical day is as follows: breakfast at 6:30 AM (oatmeal or sweet potato), shake at 9:30 AM - 10 AM, lunch at 12:30 AM - 1 PM (chicken breast, salad, brown rice), snack at 3:30 PM - 4 PM (another shake if I'm on the run or a handful of almonds), dinner at 7 PM (piece of fish and veggies) and small snack before bedtime (slice of cheese, a few nuts, something to keep the metabolism going while I sleep).

When you eat 5-6 times a day, your body takes what it needs and lets the rest go. If you only eat 2-3 times a day, your body goes into "starvation" mode between meals and when you eat, it holds onto more stuff (think squirrel preparing for the winter) because it doesn't know when it'll get food again.

The only other key is to drink a TON of water. I try to get 100 ounces in me each day. This is a lot and everyone on the 4th floor of Buddy Media knows how many times a day I visit the restroom!

My workout routine will be my typical. I'm going to lift 3 times a week and do at least 2 days of cardio.

I'll continue to post my progress up here. See you at 175!!!

Just another day at the beach

It's a little cold down here in Florida. But that's not keeping the boys out of the water. The locals are complaining about the cold weather (60s). We're enjoying the heat wave compared to the single digits in NYC.

Dick Parsons is in waste management. Are you?

Yesterday morning I was exercising at the Equinox at Time Warner Center. Dick Parsons, former CEO of Time Warner, was working out next to me wearing a plain white t-shirt that said "I'm in waste management" in red letters with a picture of a simple, red revolver under it.

He usually works out with a plain white t-shirt, not that you care. But very interesting choice of t-shirts for the former head of the free (media) world. Something you'd find at Busted Tees or Urban Outfitters.

At first I thought it was a Sopranos thing - i.e. waste management, mobsters and guns. But then I realized the shirt was a fitting choice for the guy who was called in to clean up the mess from the AOL Time Warner debacle. There was more waste created from that deal than any deal in the history of business.

Whether you run a business, work for a business or aren't in the workforce at all, you should also be in waste management. Much is out of your control. But controlling the waste in your life is not.

At work, you can cut out any extra BS, any extra noise, any waste. Put an end to petty workplace bickering. Snub out time spent screwing around and get down to spending time to reach the goals you've set. And cut any projects that just aren't going anywhere. And if you run a company, cut the waste from your company -- extra expenses, employees who aren't working out, employees who are not fully on board and occupied, meetings that drain your time and projects that drain your resources.

At home, cutting out the waste can help you be a better parent, spouse, friend and citizen. Cut out some of the empty calories that you don't need or really want. Clean out the clutter. Are you wasting time watching too much TV? Start working out. Wasting money on unnecessary expenses? Cut them.

(NOTE: If you have any background on the shirt, please post it here or email me.)