Where has time gone?

I’m officially moved to my new apartment a whopping block and a half away. As someone who has moved across the country multiple times, this was a relatively easy move all things considered. But as someone who has also moved literally next door as well, no move is ever stress free.

I do love our new apartment and it’s been a clear upgrade over our last building. There are more families here and the building runs a much tighter ship. I’ll be spending most of the weekend and next week unpacking still, but it’ll all be worth it once settled in.

Probably lost in the craziness of the move is the fact that it’s now been a year since we moved to New York. It felt like yesterday that we showed up at 6am to our apartment to pick up the keys exhausted after a cross country flight. As the saying goes, the days are long but the years are short.

Looking back, the move has been great for myself and the family as a whole. We do miss friends and family in SF, but being in New York for another stint was a welcome change of pace. Being in office with my coworkers has made work a lot more fun, albeit a bit more hectic in a good way.

Going in my second year, I want to make sure to really enjoy my time in New York with Colin. If the first year was about getting adjusted, this year should be about living life a bit more. Before I know it, I’ll be writing here that our stint in New York is ending.

The state of the private markets

I’m writing our quarterly private market update for our newsletter to go out this week. Things are just a bit strange right now with the dynamics going on.

The window IPO is virtually closed for anyone not named SpaceX, Anthropic, or OpenAI. Those 3 companies will likely debut at over $1T each when they do decide to go public. Besides those 3 companies, there’s maybe 10 others generating interest in the secondary markets. The concentration of demand is something that I haven’t seen in my last 8 years working in this space.

On top of that, virtually all deals being done seem to be either VC selling off their positions or people selling SPVs. There are very legitimate SPVs and they serve a purpose in the market. However, whenever there’s a wealth creation event, there will always be grifters and people flocking to the space to get rich quick.

There are a ton of SPVs being offered and this feels like 2021 all over again, but on a much bigger scale. For better or worse, everyone wants a piece of the action again in the private markets. Once the dust settles, unfortunately a lot of people are going to get burned.

Moving and Gowanus

Colin woke up with a slight fever this morning so it was a stressful morning. Luckily it was low enough that daycare was still happy to take him in, but he wasn’t himself and I think one of us will have to go get him eventually. Your kid being sick is something that I never thought about until I was a parent, but it’s an absolute brutal situation and effectively one parent has to give up the workday to go take care of him.

Of course, this is all happening as I am starting our move to our new building tomorrow. When we moved to New York last May, we signed a 1 year lease in case that we didn’t like the area, apartment, or the market dropped. Fortunately, we loved the area and apartment but the market did drop so the lease ending gave us flexibility to negotiate.

Ultimately after an annoying negotiation, we ended up signing a new lease in a building down the street. We ended up upgrading in both the unit and building, and lowering our gross and net effective rent. It was a no-brainer but alas we have to deal with this annoying move.

I will say that it’s quite amazing how many new apartment buildings are being built right now in Gowanus. As someone from San Francisco who rarely sees new construction, what’s happening right now in Brooklyn is encouraging. By the end of the year, I believe there may be anywhere between 5-10 new large apartment buildings up and running in the area.

There’s a lot of hoopla about Gowanus and the canal. Yes, it doesn’t look amazing and can smell at times. But I personally love the area. The public perception seems to be very mixed. We view Gowanus as great location that’s up and coming nestled between the popular Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. We have access to both neighborhoods and our commute to the city isn’t that bad.

Most important for me is that the culture of the area is still in-tact. Whenever new high rises go up, the area almost always feels a bit stale and weird. See Mission Bay in San Francisco. But for now, Gowanus is still maintaining a cool culture with lots of great restaurants and spaces. I’m happy to be staying in the area despite a stressful move with a sick kid ahead.

AI optimism

Most of the world seems to be getting more terrified about AI. It’s the same old fears that are reverberating throughout the population. AI will take our jobs. We are headed for a dystopian society where we can’t think for ourselves. The world will be run by a select few elites. AI will eventually kill us.

I really do understand the fears to a certain degree. No one likes to think that their career which they’ve built over many years may be taken away by AI. And there will be some serious negative consequences that come out from AI. I’ve thought about all of them as well and how myself and my family may be impacted. I’m human afterall.

However, I truly deep down believe that everything is overblown by multiple levels. Like any new thing, we are overestimating the negatives and underplaying the positives. The one thing AI cannot be is human. For that reason, it will never take over.

I choose to focus on the positives which means a better life in where AI eliminates draining work in our lives. Whether that means that I will continue on in my chosen career path, or pivot to doing something different is yet to be seen and that is the part of life that can be exciting if you let it be a positive.

AI slop

We’re in the process of hiring and unsurprisingly, a lot of applicants clearly are just using AI to mass apply to roles. It’s brutally obvious, especially when most of the answers from each candidate turn out to be nearly the same.

I have no issues with people using AI to help them write or proofread, but there’s a level of authenticity that you’re looking for. Most of the answers I see have no original thought or even come close to learning about that person as ChatGPT wrote it.

In this era of AI, I believe that most human wins. Our brains is the one of the only things that AI can’t completely tap into. Those who want to think for themselves will be the ones who will thrive in this day and age.

The months ahead

It feels like there’s just not enough hours in the day right now between work and personal obligations. A lot of us are feeling the strain as we work to close out spring and head into summer. Unfortunately, the idea in finance of “sell in May and go away” is not an option for us with everything happening.

Luckily, it’s all good stuff as we are focused on growth and seizing the opportunity. After going through the last downturn, we’d obviously take a mountain of work for good reasons over the alternative. For me, this mindset shift is important to get me through.

I can sit here and stress about my entire day being packed with meetings, interviews, etc. Or I can look at it from a perspective that we are growing a successful business that is never easy to do. There will be growing pains and a lot of work upfront, but it will be all worth it once we get to where we want to be.

Post trip thoughts

I’m back in the office after a short few days in San Juan, Puerto Rico with the family and the in-laws. It’s an absolutely gorgeous place with amazing people and culture. I loved being able to explore a new place and culture again as this was the first time going somewhere new since Colin was born 18 months ago.

All that said, things are different obviously nowadays with Colin. I’ve learned a lot between our last trip to Mexico in the fall and this trip to Puerto Rico. Vacations aren’t really vacations for the parents anymore. It’s more about gaining quality experiences with your kids which is magical in many ways, but not as relaxing or enjoyable for the parents.

The highlight of my trip was yesterday morning before we packed up to fly home. We took Colin to the beach for the 2nd time this trip and this time around, he was a lot more comfortable and starting to love the water. He was smiling and laughing as he ran up and down the shore. It was a magical moment after an up and down trip.

I wish I could report that it was an awesome trip the entire time, but my stress levels felt at a medium-high level for large portions of it. Part of that is just being a parent of an active toddler where you just have no idea what to expect. Part of it was also having my elderly in-laws with us. And the last and probably worst part of it is my inability to deal to shut off and deal with my stress from other areas well.

I unfortunately let a lot of work stress seep into this trip and it was on my mind for large parts of the trip. This was something that didn’t need to happen and a lot of it was self-inflicted. I have a lot of work to do in this department to ensure that I stop bringing this stress home and impact my personal life. In retrospect, none of the things I stressed about moved the needle and ultimately it was a nothing-burger that lived in my head.

On the topic of stress, I wonder how much being in New York this last year has changed me. Sophia and I were chatting last night about how stressful getting an Uber in San Juan was despite not being a very stressful at all. The drivers were always helpful and patient, but we felt like getting a simple Uber was an incredibly stressful situation every time given Colin and my elderly parents.

I wrote a little bit a few weeks ago about how my perception of wealth has shifted a bit since moving to New York. I wonder just how much living in New York has changed me. Everything is well… just more stressful here. The crowds and the people. All the reasons that make it a great place to live also have a trade-off that nothing is ever easy.

I wonder if I’ve just become an angrier and less pleasant person in the last year. If I’m asking the question, I probably already know the answer there. It’s one of the many things that I need to work on this year.

Time for a break

I’m headed for Puerto Rico with the family tomorrow for a short vacation. I’m feeling a bit of relief today as I work to wrap up a long couple of weeks with an offsite over the weekend. It’s a much needed proper break. I’ve taken some days off here or there, but have not fully gone away to unwind since January. A few days on an island after a tough winter is much needed.

With Colin at 17 months, vacations nowadays are much more difficult. We have to brave the flight with a very active child. Then we’ll always be on his schedule which is basically just roaming around any chance he gets. Visiting new restaurants or seeing the sights is usually a short lived experience. On top of that, while on vacation, we don’t have daycare like we do at home where we can drop him off and take a break.

For that reason, we’ve decided to make our trips shorter than the usual 1-2 week trips we used to do when it was just us two. We just simply get too exhausted and want to balance taking a trip to do something new and parenting in a new location.

For me, that means that I need to maximize my short vacation and ensure that I get the proper unwind I need so I come back on Wednesday ready to hit the ground running. That means doing my best to stay off my email and work so I can actually recharge.

The fight for compute

The funny news of the morning is that Allbirds has just pivoted to AI compute which resulted in their stock jumping up 300%. The company’s assets were just sold to a party so the company was effectively a shell company at the time, so it is worth noting that it’s up 300% on almost nothing. But regardless, it’s representative of the times we are in.

Compute is everything right now. New frontier AI models are getting more and more powerful, and we do not have the compute to run them. Anyone providing compute seems to be signing large contracts. The question is whether all these providers can deliver on the demand.

We’ll be seeing data centers popping up everywhere. Perhaps Elon is onto something with the data center in space.

If a struggling shoe company is now pivoting to selling the picks and shovels of the gold rush of AI, I wonder who will be next. The fight for compute will be the story of the next 5-10 years. I hope we have our smartest minds and government support in winning that battle for compute.

Social media in 2026

I remember when I got my first MySpace account probably about 20-21 years ago at this point. At that point when I was 14 or 15 in high school trying to fit in, it was basically a popularity contest. The most important thing of course was the MySpace Top 8 and making sure your closest friends put you in their Top 8. Looking back on it, it was a hilarious time of teenage angst.

Things got a bit more mature with Facebook and it slowly started becoming more of a place to actually connect and talk to friends. The late high school and college years, the core concept of Facebook was more about bragging about yourself and your life to your network. Eventually that evolved into Instagram once all our parents were on Facebook and we had to lockdown our accounts.

Fast forward 15 more years and I still use Instagram but the majority of time is no longer to keep in touch with friends really. Most of my social media is basically used for entertainment and to ingest content quickly. When I met my wife 8 years ago, she used to love scrolling end to end on her Instagram feed to ensure that she caught up with everything. Nowadays, I actually think that is impossible with the amount of content available.

I can’t keep up with the youths anymore on social media. For better or worse, it feels like they all live their lives on Tik-Tok and other platforms. Their lives are documented and they are actually live on camera often. As someone who doesn’t love to be on camera or the center of attention, I struggle mightily to get on the bandwagon.

Part of this is of course that I’m just getting old. I’m officially on my other half of my 30s now and before I know it, I’ll be in my 40s. I’ll still occasionally get on Instagram for the 10 minutes of golf content, but I think I’ll leave the new age stuff to the youths.

Bridgehampton

We had a nice couple nights out in the Hamptons for a management team offsite. I feel fortunate that I work with a team where we all can spend time with each other, even over the weekends, and it doesn’t feel like “work”.

Of course, the reason we were doing it was because we urgently needed to find time to work on a project that we simply don’t have time to do during the weekdays. We spent most of our time working through that one big project as well as many other smaller items and we were productive, while still carving out some time for nice meals and conversation.

I’ve been with Secfi about 8 years now and that’s a long time at one company, especially in the tech world. We of course do not always agree and we all get frustrated with each other from time to time, but at the end of the day, it’s a real blessing to work with great people who respect each other and have the same mindset that we’re going to build something awesome.

I’m back in this office this week before taking off Friday for Puerto Rico and a much needed vacation. I’m incredibly excited to get away for a bit.

Friday fun

I feel a little bit like a kid on Christmas morning today. I have my entire work day blocked off to focus on playing with AI tools and really learn. At 36, there’s not that many toys or material goods that get me excited anymore. There’s probably only a handful of them that would move the needle for me.

What has always gotten me excited is playing with new technology and learning. So today is a special day. One where a lot of families are on spring break and things are a bit more quiet on the work front and allows me to really sit down and focus on learning without distractions.

Going forward, I plan on carving out at least a few hours every week to focus on learning and playing with the latest tools to see what I can do to make my life easier. My hope is that the more I automate in my day to day means more time freed to spend on building tools.

AI bootcamp

Everything in AI is moving so damn fast. As someone who is non-technical who is balancing a demanding job and being a parent, it’s incredibly frustrating that I don’t have enough time to explore and play with the latest tools.

When I do find a pocket of time, I have a ton of fun playing and seeing what I can accomplish. It feels like every few weeks things get easier. We were just talking about ClawdBot and how hard it was to set-up for someone non-technical. Yesterday, I played around with TaskLet which lets you set-up “agents” similar to asking Claude or Chat a question. It was fascinating and I’m excited to explore deeper as it’s catered to non-technical folks like me.

Of course, it’s still early and I’m lucky to be working at a tech company where I have at least some time and resources to explore. At the same time, it’s no longer a convenient excuse to not have time to learn AI. Doing so handicaps your ability to produce at work.

For that reason, I’m starting to carve out blocks of days to focus on AI. Tomorrow, I put up a block for almost all of Friday to first catch-up on work, but then go through the Claude boot camp that I have been putting off. It’s time to stop making excuses.

Ceasefire

A ceasefire in Iran was welcome news last night. Our President’s threats and actions the last few days were concerning to say the least. Alas, it all ended in yet another TACO and the world could breathe a bit.

The word on how this war came to be is equally parts infuriating and terrifying. It’s becoming evident that Trump went against the advice of his cabinet in starting this war. The thought of an overconfident man who doesn’t listen to his advisors having the power that he does is absolutely terrifying.

He was absolutely played like a fiddle by Netanyahu. I suppose none of us should be surprised. Weeks into the war, it’s also clear that he did not have a plan and had hoped the Iranians would fold. Someone should have taught him a history lesson in some of America’s previous wars.

For now, a ceasefire provides some hope for peace. I have no idea how long the peace will last, but we can hope for another TACO at least.

The Art of Spending Money

I started a new book last night from one of my favorite authors, Morgan Housel. He wrote The Psychology of Money which was one of my favorite books I’ve read and is one of the books that’s shaped my worldview. Naturally, I thought it would be good to read his follow-up, The Art of Spending Money. While the first book was about mostly around how humans view money and how to build wealth and money, this book seems to be about how to properly spend that wealth.

I’m really enjoying it so far although I’m only a chapter in. It’s a really good refresh for me as I feel like I’ve fallen a bit more into the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality recently as I moved back to New York.

There was always immense wealth in San Francisco, but the culture was definitely different. Part of that is I grew up in San Francisco and perhaps view it differently than transplants. But culturally, there is something about the amount of wealth in New York that feels different. It’s hard to explain, but the amount of money is just everywhere flashed in front of you living in New York, many more times over than in San Francisco.

I hope reading this book provides a much needed reset in my mentality. Deep down, I know that I’m in a good financial position and have a great head on my shoulders. I don’t like to buy fancy things and I know what things make me happy, like food, experiences, and vacations. At the same time, I feel myself wanting a lot more than I have previously.

I think a lot of that is having a child and wanting to make sure to provide the best for him. While I know money can’t buy happiness, it can provide better access and support for my son. Being around parents who are paying an arm and leg to send their kids to fancy “tech” daycares and having live-in nannies has a negative impact on my psyche. I’ve felt at times that I’m not doing enough. I know Sophia feels the same.

Deep down though, I know my son lives a good life and we’re doing a great job. We’re not rich by any measure, especially in New York, but we live great and happy lives. Comparison is a thief of joy, and sadly that has impacted my mentality recently. Hopefully a good book is exactly what is needed to get my mind right again.

Turning of the page

I’m not a very religious person, but I do love the feeling of Easter with the turning of a page from winter to spring. Easter this year was timely as it also marked the end of the quarter.

I took Friday off and had a nice day with Sophia in the city. I spent the rest of the weekend mostly just being a Dad and try to get caught up on sleep while keeping my mind off of work. It was a short but nice break. I have a longer trip to Puerto Rico in a couple weeks which I’m excited about to really unwind.

I had hoped that 2026 would be the year of new initiatives. Unfortunately Q1 was anything but that with a lot of time spent on wrapping up 2025 and other work. All necessary and part of running a business but it wasn’t the progress that I hoped. Q1 felt like it was about surviving.

Going into Q2, the energy feels a bit different already. I’m more excited and we have a lot in store for the team and company to get excited about. Q2 is about turning the page and building again.

The big unwind

I had planned on taking almost 3 day off this yesterday but as life would have it, I was only able to take today off.

With no set agenda, I thought about working out, filing my taxes, and then perhaps using the time to play around with AI tools or do a Claude boot camp that I’ve been off. Luckily, my Whoop chatbot got me straight and convinced me to take today off from working out and to have an easy enjoyable day.

It could be that the Whoop is telling me what I want to hear, but it does also seem to sort of know me at least. After a stressful quarter of grinding and stress, combined with battling a bug earlier this week, I do need time to really unwind and get my mind off everything.

I’m hoping to take this weekend and keep everything work related to a minimum. What I really need is time to clear my head. It’s time to dust off the cobwebs off my golf clubs, watch basketball, and live a bit.

Our duty of care

One thing I’ve always been proud of with how we built Secfi is our duty of care to our clients. We have always treated our clients as if we were fiduciaries. The care for our clients’ well-being extends beyond the financial aspect to this day.

When I first joined Secfi, the first thing I realized was that this was going to be different than selling consulting projects to companies, or SaaS to companies. We are dealing with real individuals and their personal financial situations, not their companies.

For that reason, we always have done everything to be as transparent as possible and we tell our team to really dig into whether our products fit what someone is looking for. Many of my calls end up in a position where I tell someone to not do a deal as it just doesn’t make sense for them. That’s perfectly okay despite lost revenue.

As such, we’ve always structured our team and compensation to try to align with that as much as possible. This isn’t an “always be closing” type of company because of the nature of our business.

As we head into 2026 with the market in a very volatile state, it’s a good time to remind everyone of the core values that we built this company on. It may not be the most ideal in the short-term, but we’re building a long-term company.

Learning my body more with my Whoop

It was a tough day and night battling this stomach bug. It was a fitting end to the hectic quarter. And I think most of us on the team are happy for a fresh start in April.

This is the first time I’ve been badly ill since getting my Whoop and I was interested to see how it would impact my body. It was able to detect that my skin temperature and my resting heart rate were above elevated levels.

With no surprise, it also detected that I had a really bad recovery score last night and I’m sitting at 14%. I had horrible sleep and high stress sleep due to my body fighting the bug which are the primary contributors.

Out of everything though, I am most impressed with the LLM chat feature. I am not sure how Whoop used to do things, but the chat feature basically gives me an accountability buddy that analyzes my data and then makes recommendations on that day’s activities.

Most notably today, it told me that I needed to rest and recover. This is not usually my MO. After I normally get back to a decent baseline after an illness, my first thing I always want to do is get a good workout or a sweat in as it helps make me feel better.

It turns out that is the opposite of what I should be doing. The Whoop chat bot explained to me with my data why I need to rest today and convinced me that I need to take today off from any sort of strenuous activity. It set-up a plan for me to get back into the swing of things as well perhaps starting tomorrow depending on my recovery.

The data doesn’t lie even when my body sometimes lies to me.

Tuesday thoughts

It’s a gorgeous day here in New York. Fittingly, I woke up feeling a bit off and decided to stay home to ensure that I don’t get my coworkers sick in the case that this is a bug of some sort. It’s a bit of the story of the last few months I suppose.

In a piece of hilarious news, I saw that Pete Hegseth’s broker tried to make a defense investment before the war started. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Politicians seem to love using their classified information to make trades. The hilarious part of this is that the ETF he did try to invest in has lost 12.4% since the Iran War began. It seems that the trade didn’t go through as his broker wasn’t cleared to buy into the ETF, but the thought is hilarious.

On the topic of Iran War, it doesn’t appear that anyone really has a plan on how this will all end. It feels like we’re headed for a weird withdrawal in which Trump will claim victory which may be best case scenario given the circumstances. The alternative is obviously expanding the war with boots on the ground.

The appetite for a prolonged bloody war in America is very low. It’s hard to see anything other than coming to some sort of agreement where both sides can claim “victory.”

For the rest of the week, I hope to wrap up the quarter and start checking off a lot of my to-dos that have been lingering for awhile over the next couple of days. My hope is that by end of day tomorrow, I’ll be able to really log off and take some time to get my head off of work and the world. It’s time for a break and time to unwind after a hectic start to the year.