After 17 years, I changed web/email hosts today.

Let me tell you why.

Putting my money where my values are.

I published my first web site about 17-18 years ago, give or take. I was no expert; I was teaching myself, and I went with the web/email host that my s.o. was using.

Over the years I’ve bought many URLs, published some, parked on others, and let others go. I’ve never had a problem, can’t think of more than a handful of times I ever had downtime or service interruptions. When I needed to call customer support they had a phone number and live people, not just a contact form or email to an alias, not a human.

So why on earth would I change?

The past five years changed me, as it changed many people.

I was always a believer in looking at how you spent your money as an economic vote. That’s one of the ways I always explained my veganism. I didn’t want to financially support industries that I felt were inherently cruel. I didn’t want to support even the theoretically more ethically produced animal products, because I knew they accounted for a tiny percentage of what is sold in the US, and it was actually easier for me to just draw a hard line. There’s a whole chapter in Road Map for Revolutionaries
about economic pressure.

And I’ll often say, sure, if you scratch the service of any artist, creator, CEO, etc. you’ll find something you won’t like, because no one and no company is perfect. But some people, some companies just make it sooooo easy to see their values and know whether they align with yours or don’t. So giving or taking my business is not a new concept to me.

The last year alone made me want to double down and gave me the time to pay more attention.

Yes. Double down and apply my principles more widely, more broadly, to more decisions before me. And yes, I was suddenly paying more attention to the Twitter threads of entrepreneurs, the open letters to their employees or customers, their newsletters, blog posts, and other public statements.

We’ve all internalized the lesson that customers want to know our values, want to know where we stand. And if we buy into that (and I do) then we have to live with the fact that some of our customers are looking for that because they want to make buying decisions based on those stands. For good or for bad for our bottom lines. This applies to me too. I’m sure I’ve lost (and won) business based on my public statements.

So, jumping off my soapbox to get to the story at hand, I started reading the newsletter the CEO of my host company sent. Because 2020 was the year of having no commutes, and no hours spent in traffic getting to lunches or dinners or mixers, and no social engagements. And it was also the year that I seemed to lose the level of focus required to read a book, but reading a newsletter? Sure. Anyway, I read the CEO’s newsletter and quel surprise, he sounded like a lot of other techno-libertarian tech CEOs, particularly here in Silicon Valley. Like the CEOs of companies that didn’t listen to feedback about the way their platforms were being used for hate and harassment when people, particularly women, were telling them a decade ago. Or used for misinformation and disinformation. And used as platforms for conspiracy theorizing and ultimately conspiracy in action.

It made me tired.

And YES, this is why I want to get off Facebook and haven’t yet. And YES this is why I need to transfer my BTC from Coinbase and find another wallet, and I haven’t yet. And YES, this is why I’m now hearing things that make me wonder if I should have started this newsletter idea on Substack at all.

So NO, I’m not holding myself out as some paragon of perfect economic purity.

But as my domains all came up for renewal this spring, it seemed like this, THIS, I could do. So I enlisted the help of my smart friend (and web consultant) Elan, and had her research for, hold on to your hats, a woman-owned (and woman of color if possible) web host. And you know what, such a host exists, so I made the switch.

Today.

So far so good.

Have you changed any vendors or services lately based on their or your values?

Last week-ish

Last week’s episode of The Op-Ed Page podcast was a little different than most episodes. I interviewed Charlie Grosso, the founder of the non-profit Hello Future, and while we do talk about her work to bring education to youth in refugee camps, we also had a far-ranging conversation, as promised, about Charlie’s thesis that we humans will have more in common in our feelings of alienation than we ever will in feelings of belonging. As we discussed the topic and re-lived our own alienated moments (and considered how alienation is represented in pop culture so constantly), we could see a future where connecting (counterintuitively) over alienation could help more of us make the leap from sympathy to empathy. Look, we talk John Hughes, Katy Perry, and the refugee experience, so there is a lot going on. I hope you’ll check it out and maybe share your own story.

Also last week:

• My latest column for Kinder Beauty went live. All about how it’s OK, no really, it’s FINE to take a day of rest. Everyone I know is exhausted, but judging themselves for being exhausted. I’m here to ask you to give yourself rest. (And to tell you how I spent my most recent day of rest.)

• I shared some recommendations for pandemic-safe Bay Area Sights and Sounds for local public radio station KALW. A fun segment with Sights and Sounds host (and my friend) Jenee Darden

• Announced just today, check out my friend Kathryn Finney’s new company, the Genius Guild. It’s a big bold move, which is nothing new for Kathryn, and I’m super excited for her and proud of her, even though I had no hand in it :) In her own words:

“Genius Guild is a business creation platform that uses the venture studio model (GG Labs & Greenhouse Fund) to invest in market based innovations that end racism.”

Coming this week-ish.

As I think about recording Episode 52 of the podcast, I’m thinking about fear and control…and how it drives really bad management decisions in the workplace. There is so much talk about what will happen as more and more of us are vaccinated (and companies can stop paying rent on office buildings they’re not using by asking folks to return). There is talk of hybrid work schedules and hybrid workspaces, but how are companies going to manage hybrid workflows and hybrid teams? Are they set up to do it any better than they were doing it pre-pandemic? I am truly, deeply skeptical. (I am also truly, deeply afraid that I’ve forgotten how to be around more than maybe one or two people at a time.)

What are you expecting to happen in your work-life? And what are you most excited for? And what do you dread the most?

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on all of the above. And as always I appreciate a share of this newsletter or my podcast. 

And if you think I can help you break through the things that are keeping you stuck, you can always set up your first introductory 30-minute consult for free by booking it in my Calendly.

Have a great week-ish!