data.world

2026 New Year's Letter

2025 was a truly incredible year of growth.  As I wrote at the end of 2024 in last year’s letter, I had closed out that amazing year in Kerala, India in a very spiritual place and set my 2025 intentionality to be focused on the inner journey.  I certainly made that intention a reality, reading 55 books on consciousness, AI, quantum physics, and spirituality.  I also decided to write two books in 2025.  The first is The Lattice, my positive science-fiction novella covering the years 2030-2085 to process what I had learned about our reality.  I finished writing it on September 7th, just 1012 days since the launch of ChatGPT, and self-published it on Amazon shortly after.  My second was more ambitious and is titled Love Conquers Fear: Humanity, AI, and the Age of Abundance for All.  It’s a manifesto for humanity to make it to Abundance in this exponential of exponential curves that we all find ourselves in. I ’m working with a publisher, the Do More Good movement, for Love Conquers Fear, which is finished, in editing, and will be released in the first half of this year.  JD Messinger is the Executive Director of Do More Good and also the author of 11 Days in May, one of my favorite spiritual books (I loved it so much I listened to it on Audible twice in 2025.)  It feels good to work with a publisher that really gets me. I’m also working with my long-time editor, David Judson, who partnered with me on my first book, The Entrepreneur’s Essentials. He’s an amazing friend and a true intellectual thought partner.

I also decided to launch a podcast, Love Conquers Fear, to explore with friends, including JD Messinger, how humanity will make it to Abundance.  I launched it on September 24, the second day of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year).  As of today, 29 episodes of Love Conquers Fear have been released.  To mark the beginning of 2026, I decided to read The Lattice as an audio and video book on the podcast as a gift to all of my subscribers.  I’m fully booked to record new episodes through the end of February, and I’ve already recorded 36 episodes as of today.  The podcast line-up coming throughout 2026 is incredible.  I’ve been learning a lot and it has enhanced the Love Conquers Fear book as well.  It is going to take the best of humanity for us to make it to Abundance together.

2024 New Year's Eve Letter

Dear family and friends,

I’m writing this letter from Cochin, Kerala in India, where I’m about to depart on the long journey back to Austin.  Cochin, or more commonly called Kochi today, is an appropriate place for me to close out the year as a Jew.  It’s home to the oldest synagogue in India, founded in 1568, and is a symbol for the deep ties between the Jewish community and Indian community for thousands of years.  India is now the largest country in the world with 1.46 billion people, surpassing China in 2023 as the most populous country on Earth.  And Indian Americans form the most financially successful minority group in the US, with many giants such as Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) at the helm of some of the most important companies in tech that will set the pace for humanity’s ultimate invention of AI.  

What drew us to India?  Our first Indian wedding - in Mumbai.  It was a three-day event and did not disappoint!  There were over 1,000 people in attendance to see Sanjana and Ishaan wed and the preparations were absolutely extensive and beautiful.  Rachel and I will never forget it (Debra and Levi stayed home for an easier, no travel stress, end to 2024.)

Wow, what a year 2024 has been!  From the re-election of Trump to the breathtaking pace of AI to the historic military achievements of Israel over terrorists throughout the Middle East.  It’s been dizzying, to say the least.  To be clear, we didn’t campaign for Trump and thought Harris would be a competent choice but I get it at the same time.  From our economic and border challenges to Biden’s cognitive decline and the last-minute candidate switch, the people have now spoken.  Republicans will control the Senate, Congress, the White House, and even the Supreme Court (which hopefully will do their best to not politicize that last bastion of independence).  Debra and I remain committed to our independent political views, finding policies to like in both parties and looking for common ground.  And we’ve doubled-down on No Labels going into 2025, which will continue to work for that path with the Problem Solvers Caucus and more.  No Labels’ CEO, Nancy Jacobson, is a true force of nature and has become a friend over the years.

On the family front, our big highlight of the year was our summer trip to Japan. 

The Future is Here, and Its Data Will Now Be Evenly Distributed

To paraphrase that zeitgeist-capturing insight of novelist William Gibson, data.world’s most important innovation, our AI Context Engine(tm), will diffuse the future of data-driven insight in ways that will transform our industry — and yours too.

On March 7th, we announced our most important innovation in data.world’s history with the introduction of our new AI Context Engine(tm). You can read the fundamentals in our press release. Here I want to explore below why this really matters — and how it will shape the future of enterprise data and analytics.

2022 New Year’s Eve Letter

Dear family and friends,

As we have in prior years, we are sending this end-of-year letter instead of mailing holiday cards.  Instead, we’ve made a large donation in your honor to the Anti-Defamation League (unfortunately antisemitism continues to be on the rise).  If you haven’t read my newest friend Noa Tishby’s book on Israel, it is a real treasure.  It isn’t just about Israel (although that would be enough given its title and importance), it is also about Western values and the value of democracy itself.

2022 was an incredible year in so many ways but it was also a rollercoaster (if you let it be).  From a market that was at a peak at the end of 2021 to rising inflation, a rising Fed funds rate to try to combat it, the shocking Russian attack of Ukraine, but also with many truly amazing technological breakthroughs, including at data.world, and beautiful moments of humanity (including Ukraine’s improbably successful resistance) - wow, what a year it was!

An open letter to tech CEOs and leaders on the importance of diversity

Dear fellow tech CEOs and leaders,

I’m writing to you on this chilly Sunday in Austin because 2020 has truly been an eye-opening year for me as a long-time tech entrepreneur and CEO. I’ve been founding tech companies and movements since I was 24-years old, and I’ve never thought more about the power of diverse teams than I have this year. 2020 is truly one for the history books on so many levels, including my own personal growth as a leader.

Let me be upfront. My goal in this letter is to help you see what I’ve concluded, and I apologize that it took until 2020 to work so hard for this:
I believe that the more success you earn, both by grit and luck, and the more educated you become on the very real history of racial inequities in our country, the greater moral imperative you have to strive for a much more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce in tech.

This has been building for a long time within me, and I feel extremely fortunate to have had the learning experiences I’ve had. My realization about the importance of diversity in tech is the result of many friends and institutions investing in me, and then me taking the time to invest in myself. In this open letter, I’m going to do my best to share the resources that have most helped me and I believe will help you. I’ll also go beyond theory and give you a prescriptive call to action. I’ve put so much time into this because I believe it is critical to do so for those that are fortunate enough to be in a position of leading (and that is a much bigger tent than you may think).

Seven critical lessons learned in angel investing

I had dinner with my good friend and Bazaarvoice co-founder, Brant Barton, on Tuesday at the new Sway in West Lake Hills (yummy) and we talked about lessons learned in angel investing. It was on my mind as I’m doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) webinar with my good friend and often investing colleague, Josh Baer, on Tuesday, Feb. 5 from 4-5pm CT (you can sign up here). During my conversation with Brant, I distilled down to seven lessons learned (in the spirit of Lucky7, of course). Brant is reading Jason Calacanis’s book on angel investing and told me that many of these are in there (maybe all of these, I haven’t read the book), so you may want to turn to that to really dig in as I’m going to do my best to keep this post short. My hope in sharing these with you is that it ignites more angel investing in Austin - it is vital to our startup ecosystem here. We are doing better on that front in Austin than ever before, but I believe we are only scratching the surface here. And I hope these lessons have an impact beyond Austin angels and startups as well.

The Paralyzing Fear of Getting Started

I haven't been straight with you.  Like most entrepreneurs... I haven't told you everything.  I told you why I decided to found data.world in this Lucky7 post.  I told you the good part.  What I didn't tell you is that I was living in fear during those first few months of getting started... being back in an office and back in the arena once again.

But why?  I had started successful companies before, such as Bazaarvoice and Coremetrics.  data.world was my sixth!  I had a bigger network than ever before.  I had more know-how than at any other point in my entrepreneurial career, including the lessons that hardened for me in writing Lucky7 over the years to help other entrepreneurs.  I had spent three years in deep reflection.  I had seen over 1,100 startup pitches, which really does have the effect of making new mental connections (VCs call this "pattern recognition").  I had worked behind the scenes at Austin Ventures, seeing how the VC industry really works.  I had served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at both The Wharton School and U.T. Austin.  I knew company culture like the back of my hand - Bazaarvoice had been rated the best place to work in Austin when it was a small, medium, and then large-size company, winning #1 in all three categories as we rapidly grew.  Alongside my excellent co-founders, I had spent months researching the viability of data.world.  In short, I was, rationally speaking, more prepared than I had ever been before.  So why was I afraid?

Two incredible years at data.world

On July 11 we celebrated our second year anniversary of data.world being live.  We had a great time at SPiN in the first ever OWL Cup (the ping-pong championship) during the same week as the World Cup in the finals.  It was a real upset, and you should ask us about it (as well as why OWL is all in caps) the next time you see us in person.  We don't have to spill the beans on everything publicly!

But we did make a decision about how public to be in the release of our first ever Public Benefit Corporation Report.  As a Certified B Corporation®, we are required by Delaware corporate law to report how we are fulfilling our public benefit purpose to our private shareholders every two years.  Given our love for the data.world community, which is now the largest collaborative data community in the world, we decided to make our PBC Report public for all to read.  You can read it here, and it really has been an incredible two years.  I won't repeat the report here, as we all collectively put a lot of time into writing it, but I will say how proud it makes us to be a B Corporation.  A lot of people don't understand B Corporations, thinking that they are social businesses that don't focus on financial performance or making money for their shareholders.  That couldn't be farther from the truth - our business plan includes us becoming a top-tier financial performer and we are doing our best to generate a large shareholder return.  We are fortunate to have raised $33.3 million from such a prestigious and helpful group, and we are very serious about performing well for all shareholders, including ourselves.

The Taxi Driver's Plight and Internet-Enabled Disruption

On the way to work this morning, I listened to The Daily, The New York Times podcast hosted by Michael Barbara. This is a typical day for me, and I generally find the podcast really balanced (I'm an Independent voter, for the record). As I mentioned at the beginning of this year, I take in a wide range of content to be on a continuous learning journey (you can read that post here).

Today's episode of The Daily really struck me. It was about another New York taxi driver committing suicide, apparently because of the dramatic decline in their medallion appreciation. This is due to the invention of Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing apps and specifically due to New York City's response to them. You should listen to it and then ask yourself these questions:

An unusual, but beautiful, method of forming your company's values

I've got the Conscious Capitalism Summit on my mind as I write this.  Specifically, the main Summit (in Dallas this year), which my daughter, Rachel, and I are leaving for tonight.  Rachel is one of the keynotes and I couldn't be more proud of her.  She will be speaking about the process of writing her first book, Guardians of the Forest, which has been her dream since she was eight-years old and just happened this past January, after a year of work and years of saving up to pay for it (she paid 100% of her savings to the illustrator, Ryan Durney).  My good friend, John Mackey, will be introducing her on stage.  He has been a mentor to me for years and most recently her, for her book.  There are many good lessons for living a fulfilled life in her book and she is certainly an emerging conscious capitalist.  You can see all of the speakers here, and in the spirit of the post I wrote at the beginning of this year on continuous learning, I highly recommend you attend this Summit in the future (or the CEO Summit if you qualify).

But I've got the Conscious Capitalism Summit on my mind for another reason, and it is because of what it has taught me as an entrepreneur.  Last year, at the CEO Summit version of their events, I heard a CEO say on stage, "If you want to learn something amazing, just ask each of your employees to share with you the core values that they bring to work each and every day."  This immediately resonated with me as I had been thinking about how beautiful our culture was becoming at data.world but yet we hadn't written our core values down yet.  This isn't that unusual, BTW.  We didn't write down our core values at my previous startups, Coremetrics and Bazaarvoice, until we were around this age.  You want to get some operating history and some significant team build-out going before you do this exercise or it is just aspirational with no real resonance for how you've actually been living your day-to-day business life as a collective.