The third and final edition of Feld-Weiser One on One focused on work-life balance. In the series cut short by Phil Weiser’s imminent departure to Washington to join the Department of Justice, Weiser noted that Brad Feld selected work-life balance out of a list of several remaining topics for their final discussion.
Feld professed a belief throughout the interview that work-life balance is an important issue to everyone, yet he acknowledged that each person’s approach will be different. In fact, Feld expressed equal skepticism towards those who say “here’s how you achieve work life balance” in a one-size fits all approach as towards those who claim “work-life balance is bullshit” and life is only about working hard. But the venture capitalist did draw a line in the sand by saying that balance is an important issue to consider at all ages, as many make the mistake in believing they will “get the balance on the back half of life” an find it shorter than they hoped (“you don’t know when the lights are going to go out”). With this frame of reference, Feld spent most of the hour discussing his personal journey towards better work-life balance over the past eight years.
Feld spent most of his life until the age of 35 living squarely on the work side of the balance equation. He described many weeks where, although living in Colorado, he would fly to California to work Monday and Tuesday, take a red eye to the east coast for Wednesday and Thursday only to return home entirely exhausted on Friday. In addition to the travel Feld was also perpetually connected, reading emails and talking phone calls at all hours of the week. The turning point came when his wife Amy matter-of-factly informed him “she was done” with the marriage unless he made a commitment to restructuring his time, and since that conversation the Felds have implemented some rules. At heart an engineer, Feld notes “I can deal with rules,” better than perhaps he could with general discussions about balance. Among these rules he and his wife agreed on are that he will not work one day on the weekend, that they will go out for a monthly dinner on the first day of each month, and that one week a quarter they will take a vacation entirely disconnected (no cell phone or work emails). When asked if he’d ever found occasion to make an exception to these rules, perhaps even for a brief window, Feld responded, “No,” stating that a healthy marriage was his first priority.
Outside of marriage, Feld noted his “moderately wide range of deep interests” which include “helping to get companies created,” political activities that support innovation and entrepreneurism, and conservationalism. Much of his work and free time activity relates to these interests. A naturally curious person, Feld also enjoys reading “big thick books [about topics he] knows nothing about.” Feld also commented on his love of running, noting that he “spend[s] too much time with people” and his naked (i.e. without an iPod) runs offer him “five to ten hours a week of alone time” as well as time to meditate. His goal oriented nature is not completely absent in this leisure activity, as he has set out to run a marathon in every state by the time he is 50. To date Feld has finished fourteen races, meaning there’s slightly less than a thousand race miles left to run.
In one of Weiser’s last questions, the Professor brought up the mythology that those in Boulder play a bit harder than they work, at least relative to those on the left coast. To this inquiry Feld responded that “the work produced [in Boulder versus Silicon Valley] is not measurably different.” Stating his history of living in Boston for over a decade and frequent trips to Silicon Valley, Feld posited that Boulder offers measurably less “friction” in going about every day activities, such as driving to work or getting to a restaurant. Instead of “driving an hour and a half” just to meet someone for dinner, “you have a mountain bike trail out your back door. And you just go.”
The final Silicon Flatirons event of the summer on June 16 will be the Passing of the Baton Ceremony, an event that recognizes Phil Weiser’s service and leadership and welcomes Dale Hatfield as the Executive Director of the Silicon Flatirons Program. A reception will follow.
