Quotes from Brad Feld

I have shifted my mindset in terms of how companies should... focus on building amazing products. If you have amazing products, the marketing of those products is trivial.

I love dreams.

I feel like an email cross-dresser - I use a Microsoft product on my Apple product to access my Google product.

Accepting that part of the process of writing is deleting a lot of what you write is soothing, at least to me.

Ever since I learned about the concept of garbage collection in 6.001 at MIT in 1984 while using Scheme on HP Chipmunks, I've always thought of dreaming as the same as garbage collection for a computer.

I'm hugely intrinsically motivated and have always believed that I'm fueled and motivated by learning.

Twitter has always been that refreshing place where I can quickly find out what is going on in my tech world. I follow mostly entrepreneurs and VCs - some who I know and some who I don't know. I have a few companies in my feed. But no newspapers, no magazines, and no mainstream media.

As an investor, I'm always looking for the next great American company. Who will create tomorrow's Twitter, Facebook, or Google?

I have no idea what the economics of the movie business is, especially with all the new Amazon, Netflix, Showtime, AMC, SyFy, and HBO series. But I am intrigued with what feels like a new type of show - the six-to-eight-hour movie. It's a little too long to watch in one setting, but you can watch it over a three- to five-day period.

A typical leader has - a natural tendency is to be defensive in the face of a crisis. The first reaction is to blame someone - or something - else. Often, the blame is aimed at something abstract or non-controllable, which often has nothing to do with the crisis but is adjacent to whatever is going on, so it's an easy target.

Ultimately, the goal is to use acquisitions to compress time on product development and get people on the team, especially in senior roles, who can help build out areas of the company they have experience in.

I would say my whole universe is probably categorized as guerilla marketing. For a long time, I had a line which was, 'Whenever I hear the word 'marketing,' it makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth.'

I hope more cities engage with immigrant entrepreneurs the way St. Louis has - it's a great model.

As a teenager, my dad taught me about the idea of unintended consequences, and I've had the experience, and how to deal with it, pounded into my soul over the years.

I'm glad I get to live in the United States of America.

I separate the world of startup communities into two constituencies - leaders and feeders. The leaders are entrepreneurs and the feeders everyone else.

If you're in a city where there's no clear startup community, the goal is not raise a bunch of money to fund a nonprofit; the goal is not get your government involved. The goal is start finding the other entrepreneurial leaders who are committed to being in your city over the next 20 years.

For a long time, I've ranted against naming your startup community 'Silicon Whatever.' Instead, I believe every startup community already has a name. The Boulder startup community is called Boulder. The L.A. startup community is called L.A. The Washington D.C. startup community is called Washington D.C.

For those trying to protect the past, it is a way of retaining power, status, money, a way a life, predictability, comfort, control, and a bunch of other things like that. It is a struggle against the inevitability of change.

I don't read newspapers or watch the news on TV, deliberately to avoid the noise.

It's time to focus on what I care about and not let the noise take over my brain.

Having read my share of tell-alls over the year, including some that were passed off as autobiographies, I mostly feel sad - sometimes for the writer and sometimes for all the people in his way. I hope that the process of writing the tell-all gives some release and closure on what clearly was an unpleasant and unfulfilling life experience.

Usually, the first three months post acquisition are up and down. The acquirer and the acquiree are trying to figure out how to interact. The founders of the acquiree are usually tired from the deal process and adjusting to their new reality.

While I've had plenty of ups and downs, dealt with my share of failure, and struggled through emotionally difficult periods, I'm fundamentally an optimist.