I just listened to a great episode of Stanford Technology Ventures Program’s Entrepreneurship podcast. This one has Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Dana Mead explaining what venture capitalists do as an industry, as individuals in their day to day life, and how he decides where to invest.

“College will be the best four years of your life.”

If you’re a high schooler, someone’s probably told you this. If you’re an adult, you’ve probably said this to some impressionable young person. If you think this sentence is bullshit and at worst a harmful sentiment to say or hear, you’re with me.

I prefer to write code for backend. The plumbing, infrastructure, functionality of a product. Backend developers want the computer to spit out all the relevant data for a page as fast as possible. Their primary concern isn’t how it looks, just that it gets there efficiently.

Since I didn’t know how to program last year, it’s better to write my thoughts down now before I become a tech elitist who can’t relate to people who don’t know and don’t care about the difference between interpreted and compiled languages.

I’ve got 140 pages left to go in Steve Jobs’ biography, and I’ve laughed, shuddered, but most of all, felt inspired by all the pages so far. I can’t believe I didn’t know more about Jobs’ personal background; the creation, near death, and triumphant rise of Apple; or the myriad other people in the tech world that were related to Jobs’ life.

Isaacson writes with clarity and detail. The anecdotes are numerous and often funny. The portrait Isaacson paints of Jobs has inspired, scared, and taught me a lot. I admire Jobs’ passion for life and creation; I’m repulsed by his streaks of cruelty. Because of and despite of his character strengths and flaws, he left a lasting legacy. The biography’s author Walter Isaacson put it this way:

I spent time over the holidays thinking about what makes a good mentor. Here’s my summary after thinking about the mentors I’ve had so far.

Good mentors:

1. cultivate long-term relationships with their mentees
2. can distill their years of experience into good advice that’d take mentees years to figure out on their own
3. want a mutually beneficial relationship where they get something out of it too

4. have experience and proven track record in an industry related to the mentee

5. Ben, whom I’ve written about before, is a good mentor because he was good at setting aside time for me. He helped me learn the basics of computer science, encouraged me, gave me straight medicine, and called it like he saw it. He’s not afraid to be honest and can be very encouraging. We’re good friends. He was patient yet demanding out of what he expected. He knew when to push and when to nudge.

6. Last fall when I was interviewing at various New York tech startups, a certain head engineer made a good impression on me. He was candid and told me valuable sage-pieces of advice would’ve taken me years of experience to figure out. One example: designing perfect, IBM-smarter-planet-like systems is not always commercially viable or make as great an impact as I thought. He gave advice on how to evaluate the job opportunities I was considering. I know he’d be a valuable mentor because in the short time we talked, his words helped me choose the right startup to join.

7. A good mentor values the relationship both ways. The mentor could enjoy mentoring simply for the sake of helping another individual grow as a person or because he/she sees a potential business partner/investment opportunity in the future. Both parties should cultivate a long-term relationship where they come away from each meeting feeling the time spent was meaningful and fulfilling.

8. Does the mentor have a record of good performance and achievements in the field you aspire to excel in? Has he/she achieved or built something that inspires you? Or is the mentor being theoretical and professorial without practicing what he/she preaches?

Look for someone who understands your similarities and differences. Not an older person who’s trying to live vicariously through you or trying to mold you into a younger version of himself.

Also, Trevor Owens teaches a class on this. I haven’t taken it yet but will as soon as he sets another date for it.

I just talked with a Silicon Valley friend who’s written code since middle school and has lots of startup experience. This friend recently moved to New York and told me the differences between New York and Silicon Valley startup mentality.

On October 30, I attended Mehdi Chellaoui’s Intro to Chocolate workshop. It was the perfect laid-back class to do on a brisk Sunday afternoon. Mehdi held his class on the second floor of Zabar’s, a grocery and kitchenware store on 80th Street and Broadway.

I hate shopping for clothes not because I don’t like seeing what’s new at stores or because I don’t care about what I wear. I hate it because searching for clothes that fit me in American stores is nearly impossible.