There needs to be a clear message coming from the public regarding exactly which changes are being sought. Perhaps there are too many views for everyone to agree, but from what the New York Times is reporting, it appears that there just isn't enough understanding of the regulatory hairball that...

The following comment on Regulation II - Debit Card Interchange Fees and Routing [R-1404] was submitted by the author to the Federal Reserve on January 21, 2011. Other comments are visible here.

I represent Think Computer Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup that is developing a mobile payment system called...

In late August, I flew back to my home on the west coast on a Southwest Airlines flight from Boston's Logan International Airport. Before boarding, I encountered a backscatter X-ray scatter at the security checkpoint for the very first time. Luckily, there was no one behind me, so I asked...

Recently, Blockbuster Video declared bankruptcy. The news wasn't particularly surprising to anyone who had been following the market for video rentals over the past ten years. Netflix emerged in 1998 with a better, more efficient model for video rentals, and as the speed of broadband internet connections increased throughout America,...

Bill Gates got me into Harvard.

I had never met the man even once in my life, and I had certainly never been the beneficiary of his unparalleled personal fortune in any direct sense. I had, of course, used his company's software, and throughout high school had even become something...

I am twenty-seven years old, and I don't have a cell phone. I've never had one. This comes as a surprise to many people. After all, the vast majority of Americans -- low-income, high-income, white, black, Latino, Christian, Jewish, Muslim -- all have cell phones. It's impossible to live in...

The following message was sent to David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World

To: David Kirkpatrick
Subject: Factual inaccuracies and omissions in your book
Date: June 20, 2010

David,

For the record:

houseSYSTEM had thousands...

If there's anything that an impartial observer might have taken away from watching the country grapple with one crisis after another for the past two years -- from the economy to health care to oil and back again -- it's that the federal government isn't very good at getting things...

It was early September, 2006 when a prominent reporter for The New York Times asked me a question I didn't know how to answer. It concerned one of my classmates from Harvard College, a person I probably would have forgotten about completely had he not left me baffled when he...

I own a Toyota Corolla. It's a car that gets me from point A to point B, where those points usually refer to my house and my office. Occasionally, I drive the car to more exotic places (the grocery store and the gas station), but in all, I don't drive...

I do not own or have access to a plane, but I know what it's like to be frustrated with the tax system in this country.

As a business owner who has had one too many bad experiences with CPAs, I know a bit about taxes. Like most businesses, I...

In the few days since the attempted attack on Delta/Northwest Flight 253, backscatter X-ray scanners have been all the rage. These multi-million dollar machines, far too expensive for already-indebted states and municipalities to actually afford, can detect guns, they say. They can even detect small prisms of PETN and other...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

This picture was taken on the morning of November 3, 2009 at the corner of 8th and Market in San Francisco, California. The infamous Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) is responsible for ticketing and towing vehicles that it considers...

Running a company in Silicon Valley, you hear a lot of advice. It is sometimes offered by those esteemed individuals who are invited to speak on panels at conferences, by professors, by family members, by friends, by enemies, by the wealthy, by the not-as-wealthy, by the invested, and by the...

I reported previously that I had encountered some trouble with my Comcast Internet connection. After three months I couldn't stand it anymore and I switched to AT&T u-Verse. (No, contrary to some people's beliefs, I am not being paid by anyone to write this. I'm sure I'll have something...

This is the second article in a two-part series.

In early March, I documented a minor victory in a lawsuit that my company brought against internet juggernaut Google, Inc. in small claims court. The core of the dispute focused on whether or not Google had the right to...

I was in Philadelphia recently visiting a friend, and we had the opportunity to eat lunch downtown. On the way to the restaurant, we took a detour to one of the city's newest attractions: the amazing Comcast Center.

As it turns out, the towering skyscraper that is the Comcast Center,...

This is the first article in a two-part series.

Like most Americans, I use Google's search engine several times a day without so much as a second thought. It was only in 2007 that my company's relationship with Google, Inc. temporarily escalated to that of a full-fledged customer, when...

Over the past year I've frequently written about the daily challenges of existing in corporate America. The business world can oftentimes be a frustrating place, with the unyielding need for profit pressuring posh executives, middle managers and low-level workers alike into positions they do not necessarily relish. Customer service in...

I am no stranger to issues of data security. My personal information has been exposed on the internet in several instances in the past, by my (former) payroll provider, by the Federal Government, even by a prominent hospital--and those are merely the institutions whose poor programming practices I discovered inadvertently,...