Delphi is buying autonomous vehicle technology company nuTonomy,  for $400 million and earn-outs totaling approximately $50 million. The move is yet another sign that the traditional automobile ecosystem is not asleep at the wheel on emerging opportunities. Founded in 2013, nuTonomy has been making waves for its technology. Along with True Ventures portfolio company, Veniam Networks, the company has been making waves in Singapore. This is a great outcome for the company and also one of its earliest investors and my dear friend Reilly Brennan of Trucks.vc.

Tezos made waves when it raised $232 million in this recent wave of “initial coin offerings.” A few months later, the whole thing is falling apart. Reuters went deep to report on the scandal, except that I still don’t know what Tezos does? That should have been a sign! Or as someone else said, most ICOs fail.

Last night, the New York Yankees lost to the Houston Astros and thus ended a magical run to the 2017 World Series. The loss left me sad, hurt and little emotional. And it was also a reminder of what really hurts the most: expectation. When we expect something, and it doesn’t happen, we are disappointed. When we don’t expect anything, and something great happens, we are overjoyed by it.

We were not expecting the Yankees to be playing this deep in October, at least not in 2017. We were supposed to be rebuilding and reconfiguring the team for the future. But a youthful burst of energy from the Baby Bombers reenergized veterans and some properly astute trades turned a year that was going to be a wash into an October surprise.

Until Game 6 of the ALCS, I had no expectations of a series win from these new Yankees. But their three-on-a-trot wins brought a sense of expectation. And with that a disappointment. And while this is sport, I have often been disappointed by things, people, ideas and companies when I have projected too many expectations on them. I have learned the hard way that you can only expect yourself to meet your expectations — because if you don’t, then you know you can try harder and get there.

I know I am being philosophical, but loss or disappointment can do that to you. I am sure we have a bright future with these new Yankees, but I will try to expect less and enjoy the moment — or in their case, the entire October 2017. Bring on 2018.

October 22, 2017, San Francisco.

A friend suggested that perhaps I should start a list of things I like and explain why I like them. He thought it would be a great play on words if we called it Omakase. Omakase, for sushi fans, roughly translates into chef’s choice. So here we are – the first of these lists. Originally published on Kit.com.

People, often lament about lack of good journalism and diveristy in their information diet. I see that as a side effect of living inside the filter bubbles, a phenomenon exacerbated by the emergence of the social web. In reality, a lot of good journalism is happening all around us — we just don’t have the ability to find it easily, because of the information utilities — Facebook, Twitter and Google work.