AI Eats the CRM
AI will turn CRMs from a place where work happens to a byproduct of work happening elsewhere—a living record that builds itself.
Peter Berg
Never bored, never boring. Forever curious.
Latest posts
Cloudflare’s Agentic Toll Booth
Stablecoins and Agentic Commerce are all the rage these days. Everyone is launching their own stablecoins, payments consortia, L1 blockchain, and/or agentic protocols. It’s a truly exciting time in AI and payments, but it’s also a land-grab, with everyone jockeying to become THE standard by which agentic commerce happens. Cloudflare Coinbase’s latest attempt to dictate future standards with their…
Happy 5/4 Day!
Sorry, Star Wars nerds. May the fourth be with you and all, but music lovers know today as Dave Brubeck Day (ok, really Paul Desmond Day)! I am, of course, referencing on of the all-time greatest jazz hits, Take Five , written in 5/4 time signature. It was a revolution for its time. Enjoy!
Some Personal News…
This is post overdue, as the last several months have been quite busy. Besides, I’m not much of a self-promoter to begin with (ironic for someone with his own website, perhaps), but I was recently called out for stealthily updating my Twitter profile, so I figured it’s time to share with a wider audience. I recently joined M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, as a managing partner. I have the privilege…
Give Good Email
Calendly use seems to provoke strong feelings – especially so on Twitter – and a recent tweet from Sam Lessin complaining about Calendly etiquette as a naked display of social capital dynamics reminded me of my longstanding thesis that human interactions cannot simply be solved with technology. In fact, I think Sam s particular issue has little to do with the mechanics of Calendly almost…
Capping off 2021 with Canelés de Bordeaux
To cap off the year I decided to try something new – baking one of my favorite pastries: Canelés de Bordeaux. Canelés done right are an amazing creation – a crunchy, caramelized outer shell contrasting with a rum and vanilla infused soft custard middle. They re also fickle, with a myriad ways for things to go wrong (mushrooming, white butts, sagging, etc.). With the help of an excellent recipe…
Habits > Commitments
Seth Godin s blog post today on Streaks is rather apropos given my objective of returning to blogging. He s blogged daily for 11 years, and he makes the point that streaks create their own reward. Streaks create internal pressure that keeps streaks going. Streaks require commitment at first, but then the commitment turns into a practice, and the practice into a habit. Anything worth doing…
A Response to Pricenomics
[read this post s disclaimer below] Priceonomics Blog, a publication I often read with interest, recently posted an article alleging that the major card networks (Visa, MasterCard, Amex) are a “tax†on the United States. You can read the post here. Now, that’s a pretty strong allegation, and while the author spins a tale that sounds both dramatic and nefarious, he also omits crucial context…
6 Reasons Why I Switched to an iPhone After 7 Years on Android
1. Better Hardware the build quality of Apple is better than any other phone, irrespective of OS. Period. 2. Fragmentation just give me stock Android, dammit! And stop the bloatware. HTC Sense was particularly bad (and the battery life was horrendous which brings me to my next point) 3. Battery life it s just better. Integrated hardware software gives Apple the advantage of being able to optimize…
Do things youre unqualified for, and dont be afraid to try something new
Having been in the workforce now for a while, I can tell you that this is excellent advice. Famous physicist Freeman Dyson has it down: Advice to people at the beginning of their careers: do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was most ignorant. Grab every opportunity to take responsibility and do things for which you are…
The Devil’s in the Details – Frictionless Checkout
Recently I ve become a fan of Lot18, a flash sale site for wine lovers, which works much like Gilt Groupe for wine. Like Gilt, they offer quality products at a discount to standard retail, and their site features rich descriptions and photos. They ve also taken advantage of some best practices in flash sales, including: Daily emails to introduce the latest offering and drive traffic Limited…
Uber Bummed
The good, hard working folks over at Uber just sent out an email to some of their best and earliest users to inform them that the 15% FoundersCard discount select customers have been enjoying is being phased out. For those unfamiliar with FoundersCard, it offers founder-types and entrepreneurs select deals on everything from travel to business services. Uber had set up a discount for 15% off the…
Less is More
The most recent SF Beta this week was very popular. In fact, it was so popular that the venue was packed to the gills and made it quite difficult to move around or talk to anyone. Apparently, lots of people complained to Christian Perry, the organizer, and he sent a very nice email apologizing for the situation (see below). In it he generously offers those who were inconvenienced free admission to…
Clipper Card Website and Autoload Fail
Leave it to the government to take an otherwise brilliant idea and disfigure it so badly that it makes you want to just put it out of its misery. If it s true that a camel is a horse designed by committee, then the Clipper Card is the three-legged, syphilitic camel of public transportation payment systems. Clipper Card is the three-legged, syphilitic camel of public transportation payment…
The Holy Grail of Mobile Payments
Long before Foursquare or even Dodgeball was a gleam in Dennis Crowley s eye, there existed a number of real-time, location-based networks that dwarfed Foursquare in size. They continue to thrive today. Who are they, you ask? Why none other than Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Credit card companies are the original location-based service Decades before Foursquare trained us to check  in on…