“A host of characteristics make cities vibrant, desirable and high-profile. No one has everything, but some have more than others. Over time, some lose their edge. Others, through vision and planning, manage to raise their profiles. Here are cities Crain's staff deemed to be comparable in some ways to Chicago.” ~ learn more
“With the Democratic National Convention coming to town this summer, Chicago has a rare opportunity to regain its swagger and reposition itself as a global city at the top of its game, a city second to none as a place to live and work.” I hope this works out! But also not holding my breath. ~ learn more
A post from Chicago business leader Chris Deutsch about Eileen O’Neill Burke, who left her judgeship to running for this state’s attorney position. “I’m an outspoken proponent of Eileen, and although there are many reasons, this less than 2 minute video I took does an incredibly good job of explaining why, and directly from her own mouth, so please watch it" ~ learn more
With very strong echoes to the Chicago race above, Daniel Lubetzky (KIND bar founder) posted about the race to unseat Jose Garza from his role as Distict Attorney. In both cases, it seems to be that one side wants to extend an olive branch to alleged criminals while the other wants to throw the book at them. I am not pleased with the strawman here of “a rampant rise in…
The founder of Mercury (which is a startup bank for startups but don’t call it a bank because it’s not really) thinks all forms of cash bonuses are a bad idea. His view is that equity is the only good long-term incentive alignment tool. I agree with part of his message: a company-wide discretionary performance bonus is more like a holdback of salary that employees come to expect. But I…
“If you’ve already put two and two together, you understand this: the cost of knowledge work has just decreased by orders of magnitude. Why? The floor has dropped out on the price of information.” ~ learn more
“After the past few years of barely doing any exercise, I started a routine working out M-F morning for 30 min. It's awful and I hate it. But here's how I've been framing it in my head…” ~ learn more
“There’s nothing wrong with a fondness for data. The trouble begins when you begin to favor bad arguments that involve data over good arguments that don’t, or insist that metrics be introduced in realms where data can’t realistically be the foundation of a good argument.” ~ learn more
“Almost as a rule, he tried to avoid talking to big, well-known names. Instead preferring the people who were deep in the trenches, had lots of experience, and almost zero attention. He wrote what no one else could because he looked where no one else would.” ~ learn more
Ah, the great pandemic ecommerce boom. It was a wild time. Companies raised big money at VC valuations to buy profitable small retail businesses at main street multiples. But the hot money ecommerce spending reverted back to normal, and it turned out operating hundreds of disparate brands was hard, and now Thrasio — the top dawg who had raised $3.4 billion — is working through a bankruptcy process. ~ learn…