My father died last Sunday at age 73, and we’re burying him tomorrow. As a good friend who had also suddenly and unexpectedly lost a parent said, I'm now a member of the shittyest club ever. This blog post is about my dad. Michael J. Valentine was a pretty extraordinary man. Born in Syracuse, NY as the only son of second-generation Italian immigrants, he had the kind of childhood that caused him to always talk about his large and loving extended family very fondly. After

Most of you have probably heard the buggy whip metaphor - the (completely fair) comparison between those tools used to prod horses that pulled wagons or carriages and more modern-day products that will soon suffer the same fate of obsolescence. When companies are so focused on delivering a product that will soon be irrelevant due to market forces, whole industries have been destroyed in the same way the buggy whip industry went away when horse-drawn carriages were replaced b