“Halcyon House is named after a Greek myth. That same myth is where we get the term ‘halcyon days’ — a reference to times of prosperity and peace. 

When Sachiko and I were co-founding Halcyon and learned the story of this myth, we didn’t feel the need to change the name at all. It felt like it was meant to be – for the house, which had been named Halcyon for over 200 years, and for the program we wanted to run inside of it. 

 We wanted Halcyon to feel like a haven, because the people who come through our programs are doing really heavy stuff—they’re working on intangible problems that have plagued humanity. We want to be the place where these entrepreneurs can come and fill their cup and be in community with other like-minded people. 

One of the biggest learnings in working at Halcyon for the past ten years is that anything worth doing is going to be hard. Really hard. It will require more patience than you thought you ever had, will make you question yourself more than you ever have, will draw the best out of you, and will take far longer than you ever thought. The good news is, if you’re feeling those things, you’re probably doing something worthwhile. Just make sure that you figure out how to enjoy all of those components on your way to the end goal because it’s amazing how the end goal is sort of a bit of a blip. The journey is the actual gift. 

Halcyon has a unique place in the startup ecosystem. There are many incubators, and there are certainly many worthy charities that are working to treat the symptoms of any given humanitarian problem. What we’re doing at Halcyon is driving long-term, sustainable, scalable solutions to the problems that we all face. While we still, and always will, need people who are on the ground responding to the symptoms of problems as they occur, we hope to address problems at their core. We work directly with people who are proximate to the problems. We work directly with entrepreneurs who have innovative, novel, and scalable solutions to those problems, which I think makes us exceptionally unique.  

Halcyon fellows are trying something exceptionally brave and courageous and hard, and doing it with the best of intentions — love for humanity and genuine kindness. They’re remarkable people that I’ve had the joy and honor of serving. I want to give them every tool in the toolbox that they need to be able to scale their work. 

I have often been inspired by our board members who have dedicated time and generously supported the organization in more ways than one. I have been so inspired by our team. I’ve worked alongside some of the best people on the planet. We have created an organization of people that come in early and put in the sweat equity and care so much. There’s one team member in particular who I found very inspiring, and if I didn’t, I would not be comfortable handing the reins to him. That’s Dan Barker. He’s going to be a fantastic next CEO of Halcyon and I have so much confidence in his ability to lead us forward.  

Over the last 10 years, I hope I have become a better leader, the type of leader that Halcyon deserves. I know Dan is.  

I don’t say this just because I founded it, but Halcyon is one of the most effective organizations out there if you care about solving profound environmental and social problems. We select some of the most innovative, resilient people from around the world who are coming up with brilliant solutions to the world’s problems and creating businesses where the scale of the business correlates directly to solving that problem. If you want your dollar to go further than it does with any other organization, donate to us.   

Founding Halcyon involved many hours, days, weeks of walking in darkness. We were operating in an industry where social impact business was still considered an oxymoron but, coming out on the other side, it was a challenge worth doing. Halcyon will forever be a part of my legacy to the world and knowing the incredible team I am passing the torch to, I’m able to leave in great confidence and profound hope for the world around us.”