Lessons from a Silicon Valley Insider presented by National University!

I had such a great time talking about the things I have learned in Silicon Valley as a part of National University’s Alumni Speaker Series. While I figure out the best way to publish all 17 Lessons, please enjoy this hour long talk in which I cover four of them and share my perspective on what makes Silicon Valley the juggernaut that it is from my time working at world changing companies like Facebook and Square.

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Lessons from a Silicon Valley Insider: The Live Experience!

Register on Eventbrite

Hello Dear Readers,

I am giving a talk at my Alma Mater (National University) about the things I have learned working at game changing companies like Facebook, Square and Dropbox.

Lessons to be discussed include: There is only one Broadway, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is Silicon Valley’s Secret Weapon and Squeezing Too Tightly Will Kill Your Business as well as a few others.

I hope to see you there! Don’t forget to sign up for the free event at the link above.

Introducing the official Jeff August Ego Trip T Shirt

Finally some fashion merchandise for the the common man!

Buy Now!

How to Collaborate with Friends and Release Music in the… Whatever the Heck we are Calling 2020’s Hellscape Today.

Me in my Rock and Roll mode

I think two things I have always known to be true have been reinforced by the dramatic situations we find ourselves in these days. The first is, constraints bring creativity. The second is, expectation is the heart of disappointment.

Adventures in #Dadhood: Practicing What I Preach

I am currently in-between employment opportunities and interviewing has me busier than a one legged man in a can kicking contest. But, one of the core tenets of my personal ethos is “Make it an opportunity.” Living what you are saying is an important part of being a dad, from where I sit, and that is actually more important than the “opportunity.”

Me, Doblering with a Macbook in my Facebook days. Maybe relevant?

Thinking about how to make this an opportunity, I read about a recent change at Google and how they are offering career certifications that they will consider the equivalent of a four year degree but can be completed in as little as six months. This reminded me that I started on a path to get Cisco Certified back in 2002, completed bootcamp and then never took the certification test because my job had become more about leadership, strategy and business deals that were engineering adjacent rather than being an actual engineer. I think one of the opportunities here is to go back and fix that, but where to start in 2020?

An Excerpt from my Forthcoming Book: Lessons from a Silicon Valley Job Hopper

In my forthcoming book I will share with you the lessons that I think are most interesting from my time working for such internet stalwarts as Yahoo! (well it WAS when I worked there), Facebook, Square and Dropbox. Follow below the fold to read a bit from the chapter “How to pick a place to work.”

Me at NANOG, a small conference where big Internet stuff happens

All chapters in the book begin with a song to set the mood.

Adventures in #Dadhood: Building a PC

I am the father of three awesome young ladies. They have unique interests and Rachel and I have a saying “Raising freethinking children is hard.” My deep geekhood is well documented, from a Star Wars obsession in my youth to writing comic books in my 40’s it is my DNA.

So it is no surprise that my girls have received some of this geek DNA. My youngest, Georgie, is in peek geek years and as we prepared for the coming school year and talked about getting a good laptop (we are mostly an Apple house) that would take her through her last year of Middle School and into High School, she was relentless in her demand to build a PC with a gaming spec in mind… to the point of building a slide presentation outlining the benefits of this endeavor. Rachel and I relented and here is how this freethinking geek kid’s journey played out.