Not everything worth doing is worth doing to the nth degree. Just like you can overthink and over-engineer your technology, you can foolishly try to achieve levels of immediacy, proximity and precision that frankly no one really needs or cares about — except maybe a few of your geeky engineers. Pursuing perfection is a perfectly good way to burn through lots of cash, waste a lot of time and energy, and frustrate your own people in the process.

These aren't the best of times for the tech industry. Every day another jerk emerges as the latest poster boy of ego and entitlement, someone who can't figure out how to keep his hands to himself and/or his ugly mouth shut. And the many feeble attempts and faux justifications made in the name of speed and scale doesn't really advance the discussion or explain the situation, either.

Shutting yourself in what seems like a safe and secure space is an act of willful blindness. You need to look across your industry to leverage all the data available, including within your own company. And yes, there are platforms for that.

In a time when we are being overwhelmed by apps that promise everything, the critical piece is having a motivated work force that can deliver the whole experience.

This isn't about an online behemoth acquiring a struggling high-end grocery store. It's about altering our relationship with shopping in an entirely new way.

In a recent post I explained the importance of timing in the shutdown of an unsuccessful business. The main point is that, especially in the context of a "fire sale," most tech startups and digital businesses don't have too many hard assets to offer, but if the entrepreneur doesn't wait too long, there is still plenty of potential value to be realized. Sometimes the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

If you love Springsteen songs for the lyrics like I do (not that there's anything wrong with the music) then you know what I mean when I say that there's a line or a poignant phrase from some Bruce song that seems perfect for just about any and every occasion. I can think of dozens of times - staring down into one abyss or facing up to another impending disaster-- when the Boss was the only solace I could find. 

Visitors to 1871 are always surprised to see so many gray hairs zipping around the place. (No one here saunters - everyone's in a hurry.) That's because a significant portion of these older folks are our mentors and, while gray hair can be simply a sign of age and not necessarily of wisdom, that hasn't been our experience. 

I used to feel bad for the guys in our IT department because they had the same career issue that the heads of Homeland Security have. As we all know, the terrorists and other scumbags only have to get it right one time and horrible things can happen. Yet our counter-terrorism teams and other law enforcement agencies have to try to be right every time and then, when nothing happens, no one bothers to thank them or offer recognition for their work. 

Who would have thought that there would be some worthwhile words of wisdom coming from Glinda, the Good Witch, in Wicked? I saw Wicked again recently for the umpteenth time and I was struck by how relevant some of the lyrics from the song "Thank Goodness" were to the entrepreneurial mindset and to the ways many entrepreneurs behave.