Author: Melih O.

just thinking out loud, Uncategorized 0 comments on 29 days til 30

29 days til 30

Since Micky and I are both hitting a decade this year, we (well, me really, but let’s say we for arguments sake) started to talk about decade goals.

A decade is a really long time, and so the goal needs to be long lasting, but also audacious. And, as life has taught me over and over again, a goal has to be measurable.

So we’ve come up with two:

  1. Pay off the mortgage on the house
  2. Fully fund the college funds for the babies

Within those is embedded freedom from our biggest debts, an ability to generate further wealth, immense flexibility for the rest of our lives, and a big, hairy, audacious goal for the decade.

just thinking out loud, Uncategorized 0 comments on 30 days to 30

30 days to 30

Well, here we go!

First thing I did was make sure that I’m actually starting the countdown on the right day. Calendars are awful for this. 31-day months. 28-day months. It’s awful.

Anyway, I wanted to start by writing down what the 18-year old me thought that 30 would look like. Maybe 20-year old. But nonetheless, a much younger, and more naive, version.

At 30 years old I was going to:

  • Get married (to Giana)
  • Have founded a company which was ready to IPO or was a clear acquisition target
  • Have moved back to NC after an SFO and NYC adventure
  • Achieved don’t pay for your room status within a hotel chain in Vegas

And the story only gets more interesting from there

New Year Resolutions, Uncategorized 0 comments on Catching up on books

Catching up on books

I’ve had a chance to really dive deep into the book New Year’s resolution because of holiday and a bit of MUNI travel, and so I thought I’d update the world.

1) Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton

Holy smokes the author hates Jack Dorsey. And founding stories are so much more complex than I ever realized. Truly an insane account of an insane company.

2) Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

Politics are nasty, but the people in the game do the craziest things to be liked, electable, and thick skinned. I also think the world does t realize how close to McCain (and by proxy Sarah Palin) were to being elected. It would have been something else.

Becoming a PM, Uncategorized 0 comments on Focusing on appreciation

Focusing on appreciation

We’re an extremely email happy culture at TokBox. We have automated emails, out of office emails, working from home emails, and then just a bunch of emails about getting things done.

As I’ve been drowning in email lately, I started to notice a pattern that I really don’t like.

In an effort to move through the deluge of communication coming my way, I very quickly, and often curtly, reply to emails or start new email threads. I don’t stop to do any level of thanking, appreciation, or even common courtesy.

As email is such a large part of our culture, it would be as if I came up to someone’s desk, didn’t notice their hair was dyed blue, and left without saying as much. I don’t like that. And so I’m going to change it.

I’m going to do two things differently:

  1. I’m going to stop sending as many emails that lead to conversations. I want to do conversations with people, get their frank opinions, and understand exactly what they’re saying while being physically present in the conversation. It means no more midnight emails, but it also means being actively engaged in the outcome of a discussion, and not just being able to throw bombs across the table, and be agnostic to the result.
  2. I’m going to open emails with positive comments as opposed to direct actions, negative comments, or unsolicited thoughts (which will lead to a conversation). This just feels like it makes the email feel more like I’m at the person’s desk getting a quick status update on something while making sure that their sick kid is doing okay. It’s what I would do in real life, and so why not in the virtual life I’ve built?

I don’t know how it’s going to go as I love sending and receiving email, but we’ll see soon. Very soon 🙂