Blanket Statements are Evil

Election season is starting to heat up and it’s going to be a long and weird year. Politics have come up quite a bit more in conversations with friends recently and everyone is seemingly on edge despite being on the same side of the aisle.

One blank statement and thought that I have come to hate is the billionaires are evil agenda. People who believe this are missing the point completely and have begun to wage war against the wrong enemy.

There are billionaires who are evil. There are also people in the middle and lower class who are also evil. The war should be against the crooks who lie, cheat, and steal and the system that allows crooks to thrive.

We cannot be a society that frowns upon innovation and entrepreneurship. Creating a large technology company which makes you a billionaire does not make you evil. Our lives are better with Microsoft and Amazon.

Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are not perfect people, but they are far from evil. In reality, Bill Gates has dedicated the majority of his life and wealth to philanthropic efforts and Jeff Bezos just announced a $100m donation to help aid the homeless.

I cringe everytime I hear blanket statements like this whether in politics, business, or just everyday life. It’s the lazy answer that many use and adds no value to an educated conversation.

Instead of using blanket statements, people need to turn to research and education. That is the way to think critically, make informed statements, and take stances on issues.

Restoration Hardware!

I started following Restoration Hardware last year. I had never been to a store, but my girlfriend and friends would talk about the store like it was paradise.

Besides the fact the they sell furniture, going to a store is an experience. I like companies to sell experiences as products.

As retail has changed due to Amazon, companies like Restoration Hardware that sell experiences seem to be thriving.

I’m not sure if Amazon will ever have a monopoly in furniture as they do in other industries. Most people want to look at furniture before they buy it and shipping it isn’t easy.

It’s for these reasons that I was interested in Restoration Hardware but was having trouble pulling the trigger on buying some stock when I received an email blast from Rob at Koyfin.

Koyfin is a fantastic free tool for you to track your stock. The charts and tools they create for you to follow stocks and the markets is fantastic.

Big shout out to Rob at Koyfin here for publishing this article back in March 2019. It was the right push I needed to pull the trigger and I was able to get in at $106. The stock hit $190 today.

https://www.koyfin.com/research/2019/03/29/good-entry-level-for-restoration-hardware-rh-stock/

The internet is an amazing place. My favorite part about it is the ability for me to get access to people like Rob who are much smarter than I am. Thanks for the tip, Rob!

Blog in Review

I started this blog for a couple primary reasons: 1) as a sounding board for personal therapy and 2) to preserve my thoughts and learn to delivery content more effectively. I started the blog with the goal to write something everyday even if it was minor and personal.

So far I’ve been so-so with my goals. I miss quite a few days at times so my regularity is something I want to improve on. I’ve also loved writing and using this as a personal journal.

With that said, one area I really want to focus in on in 2020 is delivering better content. Anecdotally, I think I’m at 80% personal writings and I want to get that to 50/50 so I can start my accomplish some of my other goals with this blog.

Onwards…

Yesterday was my Dad’s 63rd birthday. My Mom passed away when I was 7 so my Dad largely raised me as a single father who also ran a small business.

We had a lot of rough spots growing up and we didn’t see eye to eye on very many things. You can blame it on a lot of cultural differences (he grew up in Indonesia) and on me for being a difficult kid.

One thing I’m very proud about in my adult life is reconnecting with my Dad and acknowledging my faults as a child/teen while also forgiving him for any short comings he may have had as a father.

Life is short and you only have one true father and I’m glad that our relationship is in a really great spot at this point in my life.

We had a great dinner where we dined on hot pot and wagyu beef. I paid for dinner to the pleasure of my Dad.

Hard Conversations

I admittedly used to be pretty awful at having the hard conversations. I had an old boss that would always say that I was too nice and needed to be more of an asshole at times.

There may be some truth to that statement, but it’s not something I can or will ever be good at — I just can’t be an “asshole”. It’s not who I am, now or likely ever.

One thing I’ve learned in my life is that we should always play to our strengths and mitigate my weaknesses.

If being stern is one of my weaknesses, then I’m going to mitigate it with my strengths of being trustworthy and honest at all times.

This came into play later earlier today when I had to have a hard conversation with someone. I knew it was going to be a tough conversation due to a few layers of issues.

It was beating me up for a couple hours as I thought about different solutions and ways to attack the conversation. At the end of the day, the solution was simple: do the right thing and explain the situation in brutal honesty.

The conversation couldn’t have gone better and everyone walked away in agreement and a plan of action going forward. I’m not sure how it would have gone if approached any other way, but I do know who I am and what works for me.

Salaries

I saw a tweet from the CEO of Lamba School talking about salaries of some of their graduates and thought it was interesting and relevant to my post yesterday.

Austen Allred

So a lot of Lambda School grads get hired making more than I (or most all Lambda School staff make), and every once in a while I get a little bit jealous of them. But now we have students getting hired at space companies (Blue Origin) and all of us are jealous.

The harsh reality of working a small but growing start-up is that you will undoubtedly take a paycut from what you can earn from a larger company.

Of course, this is a choice that we all make to pursue our dreams of building a company, get invaluable experience, and get equity in a company.

I am not complaining about the situation I am in, but it is a reality that we all face. The opportunity cost when looking at pure salary numbers can be significant.

Salary, Money, and Happiness

A friend of mine has been interviewing and weighing job offers from a few companies over the last few weeks after taking a sabbatical.

I’ve been helping him out a bit on some advice in regards to negotiating, weighing his offers, etc. He’s a highly paid engineer in San Francisco so he had no real “bad” options.

After a couple months into the process, he narrowed his offers down to two companies and offers:

Company A: Large public and reputable company that offered the most in total compensation which would be a nice pay bump from his last job.

Company B: Large public and reputable company that offered less than A, but still more than his previous job. He preferred the team, work life balance, and product here more than A.

He started doing a lot of research on Company A and found that it appeared that the company was on a downward trajectory with a lot of bad reviews and press recently. I could tell he was torn between taking the money or taking the job with the company he wanted most.

I advised him that his best bet is to determine what he valued more: 1) the money now or 2) the prospects of him growing more at the other company. I had thought he was going to choose Company B quite easily.

The next day he told me he chose Company A as the things he was indexing on, i.e. company not doing as well may be superficial and it was still a great company. I was a bit shocked, but supported his decision.

I too had been in a position at my last job. Do I stay and take the money, or do I leave to join a small start-up with much less pay but perhaps more direction into what I wanted to do? I chose the latter after months of painstaking deliberation.

At the end of the day, I don’t think I would’ve lived with myself if I passed up the opportunity I took. Sometimes you may need to take a step back to move forward, and it ended up being one of the best decisions of my life.

It wasn’t easy though. It’s much easier to talk about passing up the money than actually doing it. Taking a large paycut and thinking about the opportunity cost after X years was painful. At the end of the day, my gut took over and made up it’s mind.

I spoke to my buddy today and he told me that he was reneging on taking the offer with Company A and was going back to Company B and offering to take that position. At the end of his day, he went with his gut which I thought was the right decision.

The extra pay wasn’t worth it at the end and would not have made him any happier. I was stoked for him and proud that he made the right decision.

The Big Easy

I took a few days off and spent Thursday - Monday in New Orleans for my friend Brian’s bachelor party. Our group of 18 guys rented out the “Magazine Mansion” in the Garden District.

The trip was as ridiculous as you would imagine 18 college friends having a reunion would be. While there were plenty of flashbacks to our days in college, one thing I couldn’t help but notice was how mature we all have gotten in our late 20s.

Between people leaving dinner to take work calls and others choosing to delay heading to the bar to go to a museum or go sight seeing, it was amusing to observe how the group has come in the 10+ years of knowing each other.

Onwards to New Orleans…

For those that have never been, it truly is another world down there. The culture, architecture, and people are one of a kind.

I’ve been there 3 times in the last 10 years, and every time I’m there I always meet some of the most interesting people in the world. The last time I came, Uber was just getting started and the presence of Uber led me to some “interesting” conversations with drivers.

I won’t write about them as I’d like to keep it PG-13 on this blog, but part of the NOLA experience is interacting with locals and talking to your driver is a great way to do it.

The city earns it’s nickname, The Big Easy. I know we were in large touristy areas the entire time, but it’s hard to see how people actually work there. It seems that people are always outside hanging out, listening to live music, and just living life the right way.

Sell or Hold: Employee Lockup Periods

One of the stock market headlines of the day was the lockup period ending for Uber.

When a company goes public through a traditional IPO process, the investment banks who lead the underwriting will restrict early investors and insiders, including employees, from selling their shares for a specific period — usually 180 days after the company goes public.

The lockup period is purported to help stabilize the stock price after an IPO which traditional is already very volatile. There’s a lot of other things going on besides price stabilization including banks using this period to gain additional profits for themselves, but that’s for another post and another day.

The end of a lockup period traditionally signals large sell offs by employees and investors as they finally hope to achieve liquidity.

On October 29, Beyond Meat’s lockup expired and shares fell 18.8%. On August 19, Lyft’s lockup period expired and shares gained during the day before closing down 1.5%. Today, Uber shares hit an all-time public low and closed the day down 3.85%.

As a fan of the markets and someone who follows private companies for a living, it’s a fascinating day to analyze.

Employees are finally allowed to achieve their liquidity they’ve been hoping for so they can buy homes, start businesses, etc. Most have been waiting years for this moment and many will now be able to achieve the dreams they’ve been waiting for.

On the other hand, investing is never easy and emotions always play a large hand. What if the stock continues to rise? Next year, it could be worth double the value.

I always tell clients and friends that this is a great problem to have, but unfortunately not an easy problem to have. The large majority of clients will either cash out completely or take a portion such as half off the table now.

This is a new age of the stock market. Never have we seen this many unprofitable highly valued companies hit the public market and so far the public markets have not responded well, especially on the consumer side.

I don’t know what the answer is in regards to someone who holds Uber stock. If it were me, I would create a selling plan at set times to take the emotion out of this while still holding on for some potential future growth. Only time will tell what the best move here is.

Rise of Robots

The Secfi office is on 3rd and Mission in the SOMA so I find myself at the Metreon/Yerba Buena gardens quite often for lunch.

When I was a kid somewhere around 8 years old, the Sony Metreon was created as some sort of tech entertainment hub. I recall going there quite a bit to watch movies, play video games, etc. Since then, it’s been converted into more of a mall with a Target, movie theatre, and a food court.

Last week I noticed that there was a new ramen machine placed next to the CafeX stall. For those not familiar, CafeX is the new robotic coffee machine that effectively replaces a barista. While not as cool looking, the ramen machine is like a vending machine for hot ramen.

I’m very skeptical of these very “gimmicky” type robot companies. I love the idea of automation and undoubtedly see the value of robots in our everyday life, but I struggle to see why our lives are enhanced significantly by robot baristas, ramen preparers, or pizza makers (Zume).

The reason why I call these companies gimmicks is because consumers like myself want to try these things as they are fun, but they serve no real everyday purpose.

For example, on Sunday, I decided to try the ramen machine for lunch. I paid $14 for my tonkotsu ramen, and 2 minutes later a hot plastic bowl of ramen was ready for the taking.

I had a lot of fun doing this. I filmed it and sent it to my girlfriend. As far as taste… well it was edible. It tasted like a salty broth of top ramen. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I love my occasional salty unhealthy top ramen bowl, but for $14, I was not necessarily pleased.

I have trouble seeing the automation and effect on on the bottomline by using these robots. CafeX still has an employee tending the machine. I’d imagine repairs and maintenance cost a lot.

I’m excited for the future of robotics. I dream of the day where I can let a robot into my building who delivers my bowl of Pho still piping hot in it’s heat chamber. I look forward to take autonomous cars on trips. The difference here is that these types of “robots” serve a purpose — they can and will do things better than humans.

Until a robot can make my coffee, ramen, or pizza than a human, I’m staying away from these gimmick robots.

Gamification

I’ve had a very relaxing weekend with a lot of rest, limited drinks, and not that many activities. It’s been awesome to rejuvenate especially since I’m headed to a bachelor party in New Orleans from Thursday - Monday.

I took an interactive spin class this morning at Equinox that measures each biker’s ride and uses that data to put everyone in mini-games.

Throughout the 50 minute class, you will warm-up, do a traditional one song ride, mini-game, one song ride, next mini-game, and so on for a total of 3 games.

I am not a big cycling fan as I feel like I get much better workouts in other exercises like running, but this is the one cycling class that I truly love.

The mini-games are fantastic as it encourages competition among your classmates while doing a great job of not embarrassing the slow riders. The games today were an individual game, followed by a 2 team competition, and then a 4 team competition.

I have always been a competitive person and nothing gets me going more than trying to win. Reflecting after class, I realized that I’ve never cycled this hard in my entire life.

This is a successful use case of “gamification” and I love the idea of “gamifying” everyday tasks.

Superhuman founder Rahul Vohra describes how his team designs products with the same video game principles that create joyful experiences.

I’m planning on writing about my recent foray into using Superhuman this week, but reaching inbox zero daily feels like a game. One that I need to win every single day.

Everyone is motivated differently, but for me, nothing works better than competition through games. I’m very excited to continue to see the trend of companies and software moving towards “gamifying” everyday tasks that lead to efficiency.

In the case of cycling classes, I’m going to need to practice a lot more as I came in 7th out of 8th of the men in the class and on the bottom quartile including women. The winner by far in this class including both men and women was Anne. After class, I glanced over to bike 39 to get a glimpse of this superwoman expecting to see a jacked lady who could probably break me in half.

To my surprise, Anne was a middle-aged fairly built woman who looked closer to a grandmother than someone who just biked 20 miles faster and harder than the entire class. Needless to say, I was very impressed, but it makes me want to work harder and beat Anne one day.

Meditation

I started meditating back in 2014 during my first year of work. I had always been an antsy person and felt that meditation might help me relax, calm down, and be present.

It ended up being one of the best things habits I’ve formed.

Many of my friends who I recommend to meditation are almost always very skeptical. I think the problem is many don’t realize that meditation isn’t about blocking out your thoughts, but filtering and analyzing those thoughts in a more mindful way.

For example, one morning I can be agitated and easily irritable. Meditation helps me understand the reasons that made me agitated and irritable. It’s almost like teaching your mind to be introspective and forces you to analyze your thoughts.

This of course can lead to great benefits. Being self-aware of the reasons for me being a prick one morning may help me find the root cause of it, and not let it ruin my day.

The benefits for my sleep schedule have been great as well. We all have sleepless nights where we lay in bed thinking about work or something that happened the past day or week. I used to have mild to severe insomnia as my mind likes to run at a million miles per hour.

Nowadays, my mind still runs at a million miles per hour, but meditation helps me view these thoughts in a much different lens. In a way, it makes me realize that everything is okay and this is how my mind is and I shouldn’t let it bother me.

I started using Headspace many years ago to teach myself how to meditate. I’ve since switched to Calm and use it almost daily. Both are great products and I would highly recommend both apps.

Troops in War

You go to war with the troops you have, not the ones you want

This was a popular saying among leaders at my old firm. Being one of the world’s largest firms, we had thousands of employees in New York alone.

The quote was always brought up whenever we’d have a struggling new team member. Of course, we all hoped we got the best staff and managers, but quite often we’d be stuck with people who had underwhelming performance reviews.

While that quote may hold true in a very large firm where recruiting and talent placement is someone else’s job, I’m happy that at Secfi we have control of who we go to war with.

We’ve got 3 new team members starting in our SF office in the next few weeks, and I couldn’t be more excited.

It’s been a long road the past year at Secfi. I was the sole member in SF for 4 months. Then it was the two of us for the last 9.

Things will change. Hopefully for the better, but there will be obstacles with a growing team. I’m just happy that I got to choose the troops that I’m going to war with.

WeWork: A Success and Failure Story

One question I’ve been getting from clients and friends is whether we’ve invested in WeWork and have had to deal with the severe valuation cuts.

We have not directly invested in WeWork, but we are definitely dealing with the fallout that comes along with the WeWork and Softbank fiasco.

People that want to seem smart will just see everything that Softbank has invested in and assume that the company is the next WeWork.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Yes, there are many companies out there that are overvalued. Yes, there are companies out there that are mismanaged. But assuming everything Softbank touches is an easy to make and harsh assumption.

On to WeWork.

First, the good. You just have to be impressed with the unprecedented growth. Never has a company scaled that fast. We’ll get to the bad about Adam Neumann in a bit, but he is an impressive storyteller and negotiator. His vision for WeWork was impressive and if you ever heard him speak, you wanted to believe him.

Those are some impressive qualities for a start-up founder and CEO. What he achieved in his time frame as CEO of We is going to be talked about for the rest of my lifetime. Unfortunately, this will all be overshadowed by the failed IPO and the end of his tenure.

I don’t believe Neumann was a terrible CEO like some are painting him out to be. I believe this to be a classic case of mismanagement by the board of directors.

Adam Neumann had a vision. A pretty darn good one. Softbank and the board didn’t just give him a loaded gun, but a fully automatic machine gun to accomplish his vision. This was the problem.

The job of the board of directors is to supervise the activities of the company and management. Rather than do this, they gave him everything he wanted (including an insane parachute!).

When the scandals of alcohol abuse, private planes, mismanagement, etc. started coming out, the board didn’t remove Neumann as CEO or replace him. Rather they appeased him by giving him more.

Softbank and the board rode Neumann out thinking that the IPO was a means to the end. And well, we know how that ended.

I have yet to sit on the board of a company so I can’t say I’m the expert here, but what I do know is that everyone and everything needs checks and balances. Giving a CEO free reign to do what he wants, when he wants to will lead to dire consequences.

I am not defending Neumann as a person. Afterall, it was his actions and mismanagement that led to his employees getting screwed while he walks away with $1.7b. I just wonder with proper guidance and checks and balances, what Neumann and WeWork could have been.

Google, All Time Highs, and Earnings Szn

I’m in the process of rewatching Silicon Valley and in the beginning of Season 3, Action Jack Barker shares an anecdote about Google and discusses how Google is now worth over $400b.

This was presumably filmed in 2015/2016 and aired in mid-2016. Google is now worth over $800b. It’s amazing to think how one of the world’s biggest companies doubled in size in less than 5 years.

Part and parcel to Google hitting all time highs is the S&P 500 also hitting fresh all time highs.

I’ve written about how there is without a doubt a bearish sentiment right now and people are more scared of the markets than perhaps ever before, but yet we keep seeing fresh all time highs and the fed is looking to cut rates again.

Perhaps the most important thing to keeping the markets on this upward trajectory is the Q3 earnings releases that most major tech companies will be releasing over the next couple weeks.

The tech industry has been under fire with news of overvaluation of SaaS companies and of course, WeWork. A negative “Earnings Szn” will undoubtedly further scare investors off tech companies.

It’ll be an interesting few weeks and I look forward to writing about it.

City of Angels

I have been in Los Angeles for the FINRA Small Firm Conference in Santa Monica. Since we are in the business of securities, we have to be sure to be compliant with FINRA and it was a good chance to get updates from the agency and network with folks from other firms.

I reluctantly flew down on Wednesday morning. I’ve had a few long weeks and weekends, and I really didn’t want to go through the hassle of another short 2 day trip while getting behind on my work.

As I write this at the airport on Thursday afternoon, I’m really glad I made the trip. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and heading to LA, getting my mind (mostly) off of work was exactly what the doctor ordered.

The networking event at the Bungalow was great as I met some great people and the nigiri sushi bar was on point. Afterwards, I had some old friends come meet me at the Bungalow and we went to a sports bar to watch basketball and catch up.

On Thursday, I left the conference early as the afternoon sessions were not applicable to our line of business and decided to take some personal time.

I grabbed lunch with another old friend from high school, and then spent a couple hours as a tourist walking around the Santa Monica boardwalk and promenade with my email shut off.

I find it funny that a FINRA conference being the cure for my recent rut, but catching up with old friends and enjoying the sun was exactly what I needed.

It’s a gentle reminder that everything in life is a mindset, and I need to always attack things with a positive mindset.

The Business of Sleep

I wrote yesterday about rough couple days and I’m happy to report today that I’m feeling better. A good night of sleep does wonders both physically and mentally.

It reminded me of a great article I read on the Business of Sleep by Stuart McGurk. The article starts out with quotes from a sleep expert on the importance of sleep. Lots of the research merely confirms what most people already know — getting enough sleep is good for your health.

Stuart then dives into the rapid rise of consumer products and sleep coaches. He describes how tiredness has become the new norm and capitalism is coming for our sleep.

Here is a list of the various devices, gadgets, lamps, apps, earplugs, blankets, trackers and, in one instance at least, creepy sleep robots that I will invite into my bedroom while writing this story.

I read using a SomniLight Amber Book Lamp (“specifically designed to mimic the amber wavelength of candlelight without sacrificing the safety and convenience of modern lighting”, £30). By my bed sits a Philips Somneo Wake-Up Light, which mimics the rise and fall of the sun (“with light-guided breathing and personalised sun settings”, £190). Splaying me to my mattress is a Mela Comfort weighted blanket (swaddle, baby, etc, from £125), while below me is a Withings Sleep Tracking Mat (“offers sleep cycle analysis, heart-rate tracking and snore detection”, £100). I use a pillow from Nanu that’s been created just for me based on an algorithm (“designed by you, made by Nanu”, £30). I wear Tom Brady TB12 Under Armour Athlete Recovery pyjamas (“the key is the ‘far infrared’ print inside... Far infrared is a type of energy that benefits the human body”, from £42). In my ears are Bose Noise-Masking Sleepbuds (“sleep better. Cover unwanted noise with soothing sounds”, £230). On my finger sits an Oura Ring sleep tracker, sampling my pulse 250 times per second (“you learn your optimal times to move, eat and take a break to get that restorative sleep”, £280). Every night an app called Sleepzy attempts to nag me to bed at 10.45pm. I use the Somnox Sleep Robot exactly twice (“by using breathing regulation, sounds and affection, the Sleep Robot offers...”, £549).

On the surface, this may seem like excessive consumerism and perhaps some good ole fashioned turning off devices one hour before sleep may work just as well. But as someone who has always been a bad sleeper, I’m all for this consumer trend.

I’ve never been someone who has been able to sleep on command or been able to sleep early. Perhaps this is partly due to my bad habits or maybe I’m just wired a bit different. I know my best friend has the same problem. I am always truly jealous of people who are good sleepers.

As mental health issues are on the rise in America and we gain more and more access to things such as Netflix that keep us up at night, I’m going to be following this trend of the rise of sleep aids.

Exhaustion and Back to the Basics

One thing I have been working on in the past year is listening to my body, not overdoing it, and getting more rest.

I have generally been getting much better at it, but this past week and weekend proved to be a major failure and I’m paying for it today.

We had team members visiting San Francisco last week so we have a jam packed schedule of meetings, dinners, etc.

I started to feel the exhaustion hit on Thursday evening after a dinner. On Friday, I took off on a preplanned trip to Seattle to catch-up with friends and watch my Huskies take on Oregon.

It was a fun, but terribly exhausting weekend filled with late nights, early mornings, and partying with friends. I did my best to recover and relax on Sunday night after I got home, but the pure exhaustion and anxiety kicked in.

I felt mentally, physically, and emotionally drained. Sleep was hard to come by despite being exhausted.

The bad vibes carried over to today and I was very sluggish to say the least. I made to to the mid-afternoon when I crashed and decided that I needed to listen to my body and take care of myself. I was inspired by a tweet I saw yesterday that the best care in life is the basic things in life: rest, working out, eating healthy, etc.

After leaving work, I got a quick run in to try to sweat things out and get a natural mood boost. Now I’m at home, getting some rest, and taking a bit of time away from work.

In retrospect, I wish I had just taken the day off rather than try to power through. While I have been getting better at listening to my body, I still have a long ways to go.

I’m looking forward to a week and weekend of rest. Back to the basics.

Fintech Disruption

Last week I wrote about why I love the fintech industry. Coincidentally, last week Charles Schwab also announced that they were getting rid of stock trading commissions. Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, and E*Trade quickly followed suit.

Robinhood has been one of the fintech darlings when they launched with completely zero commission trades many years ago. Millenial investors like myself began our investing on the Robinhood app and the amount of users on the app is astonishing.

The start-up has been so successful it has forced the other traditional brokerages into their business model. Many are saying that Robinhood is no longer a disruptor because of this, but I believe the opposite. This is disruption at it’s finest—Robinhood broke the traditional system!

It’s going to be interesting to see where Robinhood goes from here. I find it hard to believe that they were not expecting this for many years now. Yes, they may lose a portion of their top part of the funnel, but I have a hard time seeing many Robinhood users now switching brokers and millenials/Gen Z using anything other than Robinhood.

Howard Lindzon writes about Schwab and Robinhood in his blog and I thought it was really interesting and insightful to hear from a primary Robinhood investor.

Sadness and Gratitude

I started off this Monday morning with a great meditation. I use the Calm app and today’s theme was gratitude where we ended the meditation with a reflection on people that we’re grateful for.

It was a great morning until I started catching up on my phone. There was some bad news from a friend regarding her mom’s declining health and then I read news about one of my favorite athlete’s mom suddenly passing away.

On my walk to work, I was able to reflect a little bit on the bad news that I just read and started to really notice the suffering from some of the homeless people around me in the financial district.

The news had me a bit emotional and made me realize the day to day struggle that some live through. A very positive morning turned into a somber, sad, and emotional morning for me.

I wish happiness is a permanent thing in life, but the unfortunate reality is that life is full of both happiness and suffering. There’s a lot of luck and bad luck in this journey of life.

Reflecting back on my morning, I think it’s good to turn back to gratitude. It’s important that I remain grateful for everything I have in this life. There’s nothing guaranteed in life and you don’t remain lucky forever.

The Fintech Shakeup

I love my industry of fintech. I have been involved in the financial world since I started my first job out of college and I love following fintech trends and updates.

The financial industry is one of the few industries left where the incumbent(s) have not been disrupted by start-ups. For example, Walmart was disrupted by Amazon, cabs/limo by Lyft/Uber, etc.

This hasn’t happened in the financial space. The big banks and firms are still the big boys on the block and prime for disruption.

It’s easy to see why fintech is one of the hottest industries in VC investing. Access for all to financial advisors, loans, financial products, and investments is now becoming a real thing.

This is why I am so excited about working for Secfi. We’re in a very niche part of fintech, but we’re part of the trend that is democratizing financial access for all.