So while the name Redskins is only a bit offensive, it’s extremely tacky and dated—like an old aunt who still talks about ‘colored people’ or limps her wrist to suggest someone’s gay. David Plotz More Quotes by David Plotz More Quotes From David Plotz What is Atlas Obscura? So, it was a small digital media company. It's an atlas, it's literally like, an atlas of places, wonderful, unusual places. David Plotz atlas digital media The New York Times is the greatest media company around, arguably, and the people at the New York Times know a lot more about making a giant successful media company than I do. David Plotz media successful new-york I think I did 97 pitch meetings, and even at the 97th meeting, there were questions I was getting that I hadn't had in the - you know, any of the 96 preceding ones. David Plotz meetings knows thinking I should say, the one thing you run into is, if you're trying to raise a round you have to decide, well, how much money are you trying to raise? And then you have to justify that to your investors, because they want to know why you [are] raising that much? Why aren't you raising either twice as much or half as much? David Plotz half running trying People who tend to invest are either going to invest in something where you're raising $5 million or they're going to invest in something where you're raising $1 million, but if you're trying to raise $2.5 million it's kind of a weird amount. David Plotz kind trying people My buddy Alex Blumberg learned - he was very public about his learning process, and I know for a fact because we sat next to each other for many years, that he knew nothing about venture capital or seed rounds or "A" rounds or whatever you call them, and he had to really learn, like, pitch by pitch. He just screwed pitches up. David Plotz alex venture years You're talking to investors - and investors, they look at you and they realize, you know, not every business they invest in are the founders or the people running it going to have every bit of skill - and I think they looked at me and realized, OK, this is a guy who's got a lot - I'm much older than the usual run of people they fund. David Plotz running talking thinking The process of just being in front of people, having to stand up for your ideas, and ask - and then ask people for money, which is a very hard thing to do. David Plotz just-being people ideas People found it unusual to leave a job where you're the boss. David Plotz boss jobs people I sound like an evangelist or something. David Plotz evangelists sound When you have spent too much time with something, you may lose sight of what's marvelous about it. David Plotz too-much sight may The Christians think I am making a mistake by not trying the New Testament and meeting Jesus. The Jews tend to think I am making a mistake by reading without support from educated people. After all, there is 2,000 years of scholarship about the book, they say, so it's perverse of me to ignore it. David Plotz christian mistake jesus Perhaps the most remarkable thing I found about the Bible was how flexible it is. Here we have a book written 3,000 years ago, with bizarre stories, peculiar laws, erratic deity, and yet we are able - through argument, selective reading, and desire - to find a powerful framework of laws and moral reasoning that have built a very successful society. So this Bible, for all its oddities and flaws, serves us beautifully after all these years. David Plotz powerful reading book The Bible is forbidding when you start to read it. The language is odd. The stories start and stop herkily-jerkily. The characters behave in inexplicable ways. It takes a little bit of time to get into the rhythm of the book. I found reading the first 15 chapters of Genesis very very difficult. Once I got past there, I loved reading, and found it very easy. When you get used to the Bible, it becomes thrilling to read (like any great book - I just had exactly the same experience with the Odyssey). David Plotz reading character book You live in a society that is shaped in every possible way by the Bible. The language you use, the laws you obey (and disobey), the founding principles of your nation, the disputes about abortion, homosexuality, adultery - these and so much else in your world are rooted in the Bible. You don't have to read it for its truth value. You should read it to understand how your world got the way it is, the way you would read the constitution or Shakespeare. David Plotz abortion use law One problem with how we think about the Bible is that people tend to jam it into narrower categories, when in fact it is many things all at once. David Plotz jam people thinking I wasn't reading it [the Bible] as literature. I was reading it as literature, and as history, and as a moral guide, and as anthropology and law and culture. David Plotz reading literature law I do think students in public school (and private) should be required to study the Bible. [...] As a matter of pure education, it's shocking that we [the americans] are not compelled to learn the book, which is the source of our language, our common stories, our political structure, our conflicts. David Plotz book school thinking My mother is somebody who I think of as having just an intense close focus. She's somebody who really can pay very, very close attention to the thing she's focusing on for a very long period of time, and that has served her incredibly well in her professional career. She knows - the things she knows, she knows them just so deeply. David Plotz careers mother thinking My mother - both my mother and father had very successful careers. My mother's an English professor and my father is a scientist and physician. They worked at the same jobs for their entire life, 50 years each. David Plotz mother jobs father