Reflections, tactics, and inspiration for realizing your potential.

After 20 years spent running people-driven PE firm Alpine Investors, six years as a professor at Stanford’s GSB, and a lifetime of striving to succeed, I’ve experienced a range of challenges. Until now, my writing has remained in journal entries or in lectures prepared for small groups of students. Join me and spark a larger conversation.

Self Discovery

Read about building intention into your life, including reflections, inspiration, and tactics.

Outside Voices

Explore perspectives I admire, thought-provoking content, and add a bit of humor.

Alpine

Get a window into the world of people-driven private equity.

Recent Blogs

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Let Thanksgiving Open the Door to Lasting Peace
Let Thanksgiving Open the Door to Lasting Peace

Gratitude, especially if adopted as a daily practice beyond the fourth Thursday in November, can completely change our lives and perspective, a fact I too often missed in my life.

A Letter to My 20-Year-Old Self
A Letter to My 20-Year-Old Self

A while back, a friend asked me what advice I would give to my 20-year-old self. Here’s what I wrote, and what I wish someone had told me when I was just starting out. My hope is that these suggestions offer a bit of light to anyone still searching for their footing, in their twenties or beyond.

Stanford GSB Last Lecture 2025: How to Design and Play a Winnable Game
Stanford GSB Last Lecture 2025: How to Design and Play a Winnable Game

In June 2025, I was honored to deliver my “Last Lecture” to the graduating class of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In this year’s speech, I share the four essential steps to designing and playing a winnable game in life.

How Applying the Principles of Lean Manufacturing Transformed Alpine
How Applying the Principles of Lean Manufacturing Transformed Alpine

Making this one change was revolutionary for Alpine; we quintupled our capacity, cut our time on deals that didn’t close by 90%, and started winning the deals we wanted most.

What Most People Get Wrong About Money
What Most People Get Wrong About Money

Money can buy happiness, just not in the way you think.

Rearview and Windshield: A Year-End Practice to Better Navigate the Road Ahead
Rearview and Windshield: A Year-End Practice to Better Navigate the Road Ahead

As 2024 draws to a close, it’s a great opportunity to reflect on what the year brought into our lives and try to better understand how our experiences have shaped us.

What Meditation Taught Me About Suffering (And Joy!)
What Meditation Taught Me About Suffering (And Joy!)

I have been meditating regularly for several years, and while it always helped me relax, focus, and be a bit less reactive in my normal life, I wouldn’t have called it “life-changing” — until one day in March 2020.

Stanford GSB Last Lecture 2024 - How To Live Your Life At Full Power
Stanford GSB Last Lecture 2024 - How To Live Your Life At Full Power

I was honored with the Stanford Graduate Business School’s 2024 MBA Distinguished Teaching Award and shared and gave a speech about some of the life lessons teaching has taught me.

What Teaching Taught Me: Lessons From 22 Years At Stanford GSB
What Teaching Taught Me: Lessons From 22 Years At Stanford GSB

I was honored with the Stanford Graduate Business School’s 2024 MBA Distinguished Teaching Award and shared and gave a speech about some of the life lessons teaching has taught me.

The Wildly Asymmetric Impact of Diet and Nutrition
The Wildly Asymmetric Impact of Diet and Nutrition

If you are looking for the smallest and quickest changes you can make to your lifestyle that will yield the largest impact on how you look — and more important, how you feel — you may be well served to focus first on your diet.