Ed Baker

I manage my time by blocking out family and training time on my Google Calendar, and then scheduling important meetings related to my startup. I try to say no to other distractions in order to stay focused.
 
Transcript: "Hi Jason, thanks for the question. If you had were to ask my wife how I manage my time. She would say not very well. I do tend to over commit. A bit that said I live by Google Calendar. And I one of the first things I do every week is I try to put my training time into my calendar to block that out. That's a bit of a non-negotiable. So I just take the workouts that my coach gives me in today's plan. Blackout that time on my calendar. The second thing I do is I have certain family time, that is also non-negotiable whether that's dinner time with the kids or bedtime or things like that, which are just also blocked out on my calendar. And then with my remaining time I try to just schedule meetings that are important for what I'm focused on at this time. And right now, it's really Building this app. So I'm trying to say no to pretty much any other meeting that comes up in order to stay focused because I find that if I don't say no, I'll end up getting tons of distractions and not really accomplishing anything. So I guess I've kind of laid out to you. I have three things on my life, in my life. I'm focused on right now, Family, training and building the startup. And I try to stay focused on those things and don't really do too much else these days. Thanks."

I make a quick coffee by taking a frozen coffee cube out of the box, putting it in my cup and pouring boiling water on top of it.
 
Transcript: "I'll show you how I make a coffee when I'm in a rush in the morning. So I get a box of this comment here, frozen coffee out of the freezer. And then I basically just open up one of these little things and it's kind of like a frozen coffee ice cube inside. Like you can see here. I Then put this in my cup. I can get it out. See, usually it can fall out pretty easily. And now I just pour hot water boiling water on top of it. and, Turn it a little bit. And drink it. Not bad."

Swimming technique and going easy on the easy days are two of the most important lessons I've learned in recent years.
 
Transcript: "Hey Malachi. Thanks for your question. I'd have to say the top-end site. For me personally has been with swimming, which is, I've made a lot of improvement. Now that I've finally focused on technique and really, spend a lot of time over the summer working with a swim coach, who was able to give me feedback in the pool, and really helped me adjust things that I was doing and properly. I think I started to spend time. Ron just training harder and getting more fit but not actually getting faster. So for someone who wasn't didn't grow up as a swimmer that was really important for me. And in hindsight. I wish I had done that from the very beginning. I know you only asked for one, but the only other thing that kind of comes to mind as something I've learned over the last few years is the importance of going easy on the easy days or easy recovery workouts at least so So, I've actually significantly reduced my average power for my long rides. I just kind of keep it at where my heart rates at, like, 120 to 130 or as I used to do it, more like 140 to 150. And same thing for my long runs and Recovery runs. I just keep the pace really easy and just put mileage into the legs. I find that helps me recover and then it also allows me to go even harder on my hard days."

I used to love using a cold Whirlpool after track workouts but have since switched to preferring the sauna. I haven't decided yet if the cold Whirlpool would be useful for Triathlons.
 
Transcript: "This is my cold Whirlpool here. As you can see, it's in my basement, currently being used for storage. But I used to use it all the time after track workouts, especially in college. That's when I was addicted to this thing these days. I actually prefer hot versus cold therapy. So I really like the sauna. I don't have one here in Cambridge. But when I do have access to saunas, I love to use them. And I might get Back into the cold Whirlpool. I haven't decided yet whether or not that's a useful thing for Triathlon or not."

I introduced Ben Silbermann to Kevin Hart for his seed round of Pinterest and I recommended Jeremy Liu from Lightspeed Venture Partners to Evan Spiegel for his seed round of Snapchat.
 
Transcript: "The first two that come to mind, were the seed rounds of both Pinterest and Snapchat. Ben Silbermann reached out to me to ask if I could recommend any angel investors when he was first building Pinterest. At the time, I had no money so I couldn't invest myself. But I introduced him to a few angel investors. And I think only one of them decided to invest and that was Kevin Hart. And it was, I think, a pretty good investment for him. And then with Snapchat, I met with Evan back when he was about to raise around at a 5 million pre-money valuation. And I was planning to get involved but I was working at Facebook at the time, and ran it by the Facebook conflicts committee and they turned it down so I was not able to get involved. But I did tell Evan that I had had a great experience working with Jeremy Liu, at Lightspeed, who had backed my start-up friendly. And Evan did end up raising money from Jeremy in that round. Also , I think a pretty good return on that investment."

I prefer swimming outdoors, especially in warm places like Hawaii, and not in cold waters like the Colorado River.
 
Transcript: "I prefer swimming Outdoors, whether that's Open, Water, swimming or even in an outdoor pool. I think my favorite place to Open Water Swim Outdoors would be in in Hawaii, where the water is warm, and you don't need to wear a wetsuit right now. I'm in Moab and Utah. And you can see the Colorado River here behind me. I went rafting yesterday, and that water was pretty chilly. So I decided not. Not to go swimming in it."