San Francisco is dead?

I’m enjoying the banter going on Twitter right now with everyone moving out of San Francisco and to Austin, Miami, etc.

Mayor Suarez in Miami is doing one hell of a recruiting job on Twitter to VCs and execs. Keith Rabois is Miami’s biggest fan and he’s been very vocal about San Francisco being dead and how Miami is the greatest city on the planet.

I met with one CEO this past week who moved to Miami before it was cool (August last year). It was pretty funny getting his perspective on everything. And yes he was meeting with Keith for a drink afterwards.

I can see Miami’s appeal. Great weather. Beaches. Amazing nightlife. I bet it’s an amazing city to both live and work in.

What I don’t get is why someone needs to be on one side of the spectrum or the other. Some people will like Miami better. Some people will like San Francisco better. Yes, lots of talented people will be moving to Miami or have already left. That’s okay. San Francisco is not dead, nor is Miami the new Silicon Valley.

I am very biased as I was born and raised here in San Francisco. I’m not just a tech transplant who came here to build a company or work at a startup. I have deeper vested ties to the city and maybe I am seeing this too much through San Francisco fogged glasses, but I’m happy to put my money where my mouth is and say that San Francisco (and the Bay Area) will still be the center of innovation and technology in 10 years.

The office vs remote debate

One of my tasks right now is coming up with a proposal for the San Francisco office on whether we should stay fully remote, go back to the office or some sort of hybrid.

The hard part about this question is that this is largely based on personal preference. I personally prefer to go into the office with the option to work remote as needed. I know others who prefer to be 100% remote with the option to go into the office.

With that said, the #1 thing that I’ve come to realize is that people want the option to be remote when they want or need to. There will be no option to be 100% in the office anymore. Companies that choose to do so won’t be competitive. People want flexibility and we need to offer it.

The question isn’t whether we will have flexibility but where on the hybrid spectrum we should end up. There’s good arguments both ways.

Being fully remote would allow us to:

• Recruit from a larger talent pool and pay presumably less for equal or better talent than in the SF Bay Area.

• Have better work life balance for those with children or other needs

• Remove a potentially timely and costly commute

Of course there are downsides to the fully remote arrangement.

• Lack of camaraderie and serendipitous encounters

• Those remote potentially feeling like they’re left out compared to those in the office

• The “accountability issue” - where people take too much advantage of the remote work

There’s no right or wrong answer to the office vs remote debate (besides being 100% in the office). It’s a matter of culture and a bit of business industry.

After a lot of thinking and research, my proposal to the management team on Tuesday will be to become a fully distributed team first with the office as an option for those who want it on a “hoteling” basis.

After going through almost an entire year of working remote, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are as, if not more, effective as a collective whole working remotely than we are in person. The pandemic has taught a lot of people that they prefer to work remote and have flexibility and we should give that option to people.

In terms of Secfi - we are already a distributed team with most of our team in Amsterdam. This means calls early in the morning starting at 7 or 8 am. In order to accommodate people to be at their best, we should give flexibility both ways. People can wake up at 7, take a call but use their late afternoons to get a workout in or tutor their kids. It’s only fair.

For those that want to use the office, we will always have one for people to go to. I love going to the office and I plan to use it when it fits my schedule or if we need to come in to collaborate.

This proposal of course will need guidelines to be successful. We need to make sure to accommodate the fully remote employees and ensure that they do not feel left out if everyone else is in the office. We should plan to build camaraderie by having regular meetings with each other somewhere and perhaps meet in person before we hire. We should also have a loose travel budget so people can come meet in person quickly and flexibly as needed.

No matter what side of the aisle you sit on in the office vs remote debate, one thing that we need to come to terms with is that the pandemic has changed things. Remote work is becoming a norm and we should facilitate employees being at their best rather than try to force them to a work style they don’t like.

Crypto Bull Run part II

Bitcoin crossed the $40,000 mark for the first time last week. Ethereum approached it’s all time high of $1,400 over the weekend. It appeared we were entering another crypto bull run similar to the run in 2017.

Not so fast. We officially entered a “bear market” today with the price of Bitcoin dropping over 20%.

Confused? Many people are.

I wish I had every answer to crypto and could explain everything. Unfortunately it’s beyond my expertise. I am long Bitcoin and Ethereum but also far from someone who’s putting their life savings into crypto tokens.

What I do know is that no matter how you chop it up, both Bitcoin and Ethereum are highly speculative assets at the current moment. We have yet to see widespread adoption of Bitcoin as a currency nor has there been widespread adoption of apps/tools built on the Ethereum network.

I suspect that one day we’re going to see this change as more useful tools are built on the blockchain and adoption starts to take place. Until then, you can expect Bitcoin, Ethereum and other tokens be highly volatile with large bull runs followed by corrections.

Grip it and rip it.

I had probably the best round of golf in my life today at Windsor. It wasn’t my lowest score ever, but it was the best in terms of ball striking and all-around play. I had some amazing shots today. It all started to click for me after I got to relax a little bit and just tried to have fun. My best holes were on the back 9 when I was no longer thinking about my swing or fixing things, I was just in the zone and gripping it and ripping it.

Similar to golf, I love being in the zone when I’m working. Some days and times, it can feel like even the simplest of tasks is a huge struggle. Other times, I can grind out hours of work in a row without skipping a beat doing my best work.

I believe there’s a lot of similarities between being in the zone on the golf course and during work. On the course, the more tense you are, the worst you’ll play as things are out of sync. When I go into a call stressed or worried, it rarely results in a largely positive outcome. My best calls are almost always when I’m relaxed and having fun.

Next time I’m stressed about a call or project, I’ll just need to take a deep breath and remind myself to grip it and rip it.

Chaos and Democratic Senate

Just when we thought 2021 was going to be a better year, the first week included terrorists storming the capitol building. I’m not going to go dive any deeper besides saying that our country is the laughing stock of the world right now.

I was admittedly very surprised to see the Democrats win both of the Senate seats in Georgia in the special run-off election. Given Georgia’s history going red, this is a tremendous feat by the Democratic organizers (ahem Stacey Abrams) and perhaps a testament to how bad things have gotten for the Republicans.

Now that the Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, I expect lots of legislation to pass very quickly. I’m hoping that lawmakers work quickly on things that are much needed such as climate change and COVID relief.

I’m already getting a lot of questions on the potential tax changes, specifically whether Biden will remove capital gains tax altogether.

My guess is that there will not be major tax reform on the docket in the next year. There are too many other pressing issues such as COVID relief. We are still in the middle of a pandemic and leaders will be addressing that head on.

People are quick to forget that both Trump and Obama both said they would eliminate the capital gains tax which obviously did not happen.

Increasing capital gains tax will undoubtedly have a major impact on the market. A crashing economy is possibly the worst thing that can happen for the “blue wave” and I just don’t see the Democrats trying to piss off Wall Street anytime soon.

There is simply too much that can go wrong with raising the capital gains tax and I don’t see democrats touching that and ruining the momentum they’ve had from the past two elections.

Back to work

Despite doing a few emails and a bit of work over the last couple of weeks, I’m largely back at work this week. I decided to ease into things and take half days with me working in the mornings and taking afternoons to snowboard or do some personal things.

I feel really rejuvenated with taking some time off to catch up on life and things I’ve been holding off on and thought that another half-week would do wonders for me.

I’m really excited for this week as I have some places I’ve wanted to visit and books I want to read that I haven’t had the chance to in the past couple of years.

2021 Goals

A day late on my 2021 goal post as I spent most of yesterday having a lazy day with Sophia. I spent NYE at our close friend’s for a crab dinner. It was a great night, but nearly every time I have a late night like I used to in my 20s, I feel top down worse than the time before.

I made 2020 about the year of transitioning into “adulthood”. 2021 looks like it’s going to be the year of recovery.

Like I posted last year, I’m not a big resolution person but rather someone who makes goals that I can work towards. It feels more realistic than taking an arbitrary day and flipping the switch like a “resolution”. These things are works in progress and I hope to use all of 2021 to achieve my goals.

Alas, my 2021 goals:

1. Find work-life balance. Work is getting more and more demanding every year and I find myself spending more hours working and taking less time off. The pandemic didn’t help with this. I plan on finding a better balance between my personal life and work so I can be at my best.

2. Drink less. In 2020, I largely cut down on my partying and drinking. There weren’t many places to go out to and I found myself staying in more and drinking less as a whole. With that said, the pandemic made it easy to have a glass of wine or two often. I want to curb that habit and continue my trend of drinking less often. Hoping this leads to better sleep and more clarity.

3. Learn Mandarin. This is something that’s been on my mind quite a bit. I have always wanted to learn Mandarin but have never committed to it. With apps like Duolingo that offer great and fun ways to learn, there’s no excuse anymore not to try. It won’t happen overnight, but I want to start the process in 2021.

4. Practice gratitude. The pandemic has made me realize that I am insanely lucky. I am surrounded by an amazing group of family and friends and I hit the birth lottery. Not many other people are as fortunate as I am. It’s important to realize these things going forward. I’m hoping to practice more gratitude on a daily basis.

I’m excited for the year ahead. It’s going to be another interesting one as we battle through the end of COVID-19 and the country slowly starts returning to “normalcy”.

The new year is the start of new beginnings and I hope 2021 is that new beginning that we all need in this world.

Goodbye 2020

This was clearly a tough year for all with the pandemic. It was a particularly tough year for me. My cat died in January and my grandma passed away in October as well. Like many, I’m ready to wish 2020 a farewell.

No matter how shitty of a year 2020 was, I did feel that I grew a lot as an individual. It was my first year in my 30s and coincidentally perhaps the first year I truly felt like an adult. It was a transition year for me. A big focus of mine going into this year was more self care and learning how to treat my body better. I’ve felt that I’ve largely done that. I got perhaps the most sleep of my life in this past year. I went to bed earlier. I ate healthier and partied less. I worked out a lot more.

I wrote about my 2020 goals last January 1st. They were the following:

1. Continue to deepen my meditation practice including meditating more on weekends and on vacation

2. Develop a habit of writing daily even if it’s a sentence long

3. Eat more vegetables and less bad carbs

4. Make learning about markets a priority and catch up on activity at least weekly

5. Develop better email/work and home/leisure habits

Overall, I am largely happy with my progress. My meditation is still a work in progress, but improving. I’ve written a lot more this year despite perhaps taking breaks. I’ve eaten healthier this year and I’m more routinely catching up with the markets.

Of course it wasn’t perfect. I worked more than I perhaps ever have in my life. Going into 2021, I want to make sure I find more of a balance and make sure that I don’t reach the point of burn out again. I’ll write about my 2021 goals tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to a crab dinner with some friends as we wish 2020 goodbye for good.

Building for the post-vaccine world

I’ve been doing a lot of catching up on articles and blog posts that have been on the back burner for the last month. It’s been great having the time to sit back, read and think.

One common theme that I am seeing throughout is that people are starting to envision the post-vaccine world. Put in other ways, are the trends that we saw and are seeing during COVID-19 long-term trends or fads that will fade?

For builders, there couldn’t possibly be a more exciting time. There are new trends and ways of thinking in the post-COVID world. This creates massive opportunities to build businesses in these spaces.

On the flip side, people need to be able to decipher quarantine reality from the post-vaccine reality. Fads happen. Starting a sourdough starter business may have been lucrative in 2020 but likely to fade in 2021 as people are able to get outside again.

There are a couple spaces that I am particularly interested in watching in the post-vaccine world:

The first is the rise of personal finance and investing. Robinhood and the pandemic created a whole world of new investors. Many of these individuals were simply bored and looking for something else to do. As the world becomes hedge fund investors, many supplemental businesses will be built around this.

The second is the rise of direct to consumer brands, particularly in the food and beverage industry. The 2010s saw the day and age of DTC with suitcases, mattresses, glasses, and nearly everything in between being disrupted. One DTC area that has yet to take a hold is the food and beverage industry. That area is ripe for disruption as more people become brand loyal and turn to higher quality products.

We’re set up for a Roaring 20s of epic proportions. People are going to be hungry to spend their money and live life after quarantine. There is no better time in the history of the world than to build a company than it is right now.

Joy is back!

Some much needed time off is what the doctor ordered. The holidays couldn’t have come at a better time for me and others at Secfi. It’s been a long 6 months and I know a lot of people are burnt out from the pandemic and work.

I’ve been off a little less than a week and have only done a bit of clean up work and follow-ups. I am starting to feel refreshed again.

That feeling of excitement when I start thinking about work and new initiatives has started to come back. It was sorely missed the last month or so. The joy of building a company is coming back.

I know going forward that I can’t let myself get to the point of burn out again. The pandemic and lack of vacation options didn’t help, but I have no one else to blame for it except myself.

I vow to make 2021 a bit different. There will be more time off and focusing on personal needs. There will be less email checking at all hours of the day. There will be more delegation and focusing on high value tasks.

For the next week, I’m planning on doing some light touch work in the mornings followed by lots of reading, golfing and relaxing. I’m also going to do a whole lot of nothing and love every minute of it.

Long Live Finnerty's!

My favorite bar in NYC, Finnerty’s is closing down officially. Finnerty’s is a sports bar in the East Village that is best known for being the San Francisco / Bay Area bar in New York City. As a San Francisco native that lived in New York for 5 years, I like many other transplants lived at Finnerty’s.

I first went to Finnerty’s with a close high school friend when I was interviewing out in New York in 2011. I came back to Finnerty’s during my internship in the winter and I had my birthday party there in March 2012. I fell in love with the bar during that winter. It felt like home away from home.

When I finally got back to New York in the fall of 2013, I instantly became a local and lived within blocks of Finnerty’s during my entire 5 years in the city. I became friends with the bartenders there and ended up meeting the owners Dieter and Brian. They are great people who always took care of everyone.

I’ve had countless drinks with old and new friends at Finnerty’s. I’ve watched Warriors, 49ers, Giants, and even my Washington Husky games there. I’ve had heartbreak when my teams have lost and triumph during the World Series and NBA Championship runs.

One of my most memorable meetings was being asked to go on Good Morning America by Brian during the NBA Championship run. I got to meet Michael Strahan and the rest of the crew during that experience.

Some of my favorite moments at Finn’s was when I used to go in by myself and sit at the bar for hours. I would often bring a laptop and get some work done or just hang with the bartenders. Often, people would come up and ask where I was from and we would end up talking for an hour or two about our ties to the Bay Area.

My 5 years in New York was one of the most exciting times in my life and a large part of that was due to Finnerty’s. I’ll never forget the bar, the people and all the times I had there.

The public vs private debate

I just got back from my first weekend up at Lake Tahoe this winter. The mountain was crowded but generally pretty well done. I felt safe and the staff was enforcing rules like distancing and masks. It’s going to be an interesting winter as COVID numbers are peaking, but being on the mountain gives me a sense of normalcy.

I have been listening to Keith Rabois on Jason Calacanis’ podcast and it’s a good one. There’s a lot of unravel in this podcast, but I was particularly interested in the piece about going public versus staying private. Keith is a big believer that companies should be aiming to go public as soon as they can.

He also mentions SPACs as a way for companies who are not ready to go public to go public in a much quicker fashion. It’s an interesting take and one I would agree with.

The previous 10 years were headlined by big name companies staying private longer. This trend seems to be reversing as companies are now headed for the public markets earlier. SPACs have become a vehicle to enable this, but I expect that we’ll start to see more direct listings as well.

Roaring 20s 2.0

I’ve been seeing a lot of people on Twitter calling this the Roaring 20s 2.0. I had a big holy crap moment when I heard that for the first time. The parallels are uncanny.

Yes, COVID-19 and modern technology will pale in comparison to the Spanish Flu. And yes, there was no World War, but there has been no shortage of turmoil in the country over the last few years.

The first year of the 2020s started with a global pandemic not seen in well over 100 years, and it ended with the stock market ripping reaching new all-time highs.

Bitcoin has just crossed $21,000 for the first time and seemingly no IPO can go wrong in this market. The only question is how long can this last?

My favorite bar in New York City, Finnerty’s has a for lease sign on it’s door. Restaurants are closing at alarming rates. There are millions out of work and struggling because of the pandemic.

The tech and white collar world that myself and my friends live in is a world’s away from what’s happening in the rest of America. We stand to benefit the most from this boom, but I can’t help but think of the struggle happening elsewhere.

We live in a bit of a fantasy world right now. Things seem almost unreal. I want to enjoy it as much as I can, but I also know that reality can hit us hard and quick.

The Roaring 20s 1.0 officially ended on Black Tuesday in 1929 launching America into the Great Depression. That depression lasted until World War II began in 1941.

I do hope we see a decade of the Roaring 20s 2.0. I dear god hope we don’t see a decade of the Great Depression 2.0. I remain cautiously optimistic, but history has a weird way of repeating itself.

The light at the end of the tunnel

The vaccine is here and has started to be delivered to those that need it most. If all goes well as we all hope and expect, the light is at the end of the COVID tunnel.

Unfortunately, we’re still far away from clear. More Americans are dying every day from COVID than ever before. The holiday season will likely provide a larger spike. Things are going to get much worse before they get better.

The market and specifically the IPO market is still hitting with Doordash and Airbnb making their debuts last week. I still remain bullish on the market with more money in consumer hands than ever before, but I’m starting to pull back a bit.

I got caught chasing a bit over the last couple of weeks. My hand was in the cookie jar and I got greedy. There’s still a lot of froth right now and I need to be more cautious as we hit the holiday season.

Unfortunately a lot of my positions that I have been trimming over the last few months have continued to gone up. I am kicking myself for selling Lululemon, Disney, and Restoration Hardware too early…. but that is life and investing.

I am fascinated by this concept of the “Roaring 20s 2.0” and I want to ponder on that more in a blog post later this week.

The stock option problem

We just finished putting together a blog post about the DoorDash IPO. In the post, we discuss how much money DoorDash employees left on the table because they didn’t exercise their stock options.

In short, as your company grows bigger and your equity value increases, exercising your stock options also becomes more unaffordable.

This is the big issue with stock options.

Stock options are a beautiful thing in many ways. They are an amazing tool to recruit employees and compensate them. They can motivate employees. And yes, they are an amazing way for employees to build significant wealth.

On the other hand, they can be a major cause of stress for employees. They are confusing and not many people understand them. By the time many employees learn about their options, it’s too late and they end up being stuck in a hole.

This is the problem that Secfi is trying to solve. We’re hoping to provide education and access to all so they can plan around their equity better.

It’s definitely not easy. We’re constantly jumping up and down trying to get people to plan around their equity. It’s goign to take a lot more work than one blog post. It’s a message that we’re going to continue to preach and will take time to get out.

Everyone's an investor

It’s pretty surreal to see the investing activity happening right now. Modern technology has made everyone an investor.

Apps like Robinhood made it so easy that teenagers can become public market investors and get access to complicated financial instruments in a matter of hours.

Platforms like AngelList has created a medium for accredited investors to become angel investors. Taking it one step further, there are crowdfunding platforms that allow you to circumvent accreditation and still get equity in a company.

There’s more money than ever before in the United States and people are heavily investing it. That’s the great side of this. Financial education is important and something that is not taught in our school system. The fact that people are investing their money instead of spending it is a step in the right direction.

Of course, there’s two sides of the coin and we’re seeing a lot of dangerous and reckless behavior. While I believe accredited investor rules are antiquated, they are there to protect the public.

I’m very interested to see how investing rules evolve over the next couple of years now that anyone can become an “investor”.

My take is that there needs to be access to all but with proper education and stops in place. How this education gets distributed will be the interesting part of this investor evolution. I hate barriers to entry as much as anyone, but perhaps a small barrier is required here to protect the public.

Right now, I’m not sure what the best method is. There could be mandatory classes or certifications required to gain access to certain instruments. Maybe there needs to be some innovation involved in this space.

What I do know is that we don’t need is arbitrary income thresholds and more antiquated rules.

Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting

I am wrapping up my team’s 18 month plan and without divulging too many details, the major focus of the next few months will be recruiting.

The past few months have shown that we need to do some major recruiting to properly scale. The team has been overworked the last few months and the numbers show this. Help is on the way as we have another all-star starting on Monday, but our goals and ambitions are going to require a lot more work to be done on the recruiting front.

I’ve heard that many startup founders and execs often do not carve out enough time to focus on recruiting. Unfortunately, I have fallen in this trap in the past few months as I was focused solely on driving revenue.

In order to get the revenue growth that we’re hoping for, I will need to spend much more time recruiting. I’m hoping to spend at least 25% of my time in the next few weeks recruiting.

It’s going to be a big challenge, but I’m excited for it.

SPACs

I wrote on Tuesday about the IPO craze and how companies are looking to hit the public market earlier. As I wrote about on Tuesday, this trend is sparked by the rise of SPACs.

Private companies are looking to SPACs as an alternative to venture capital funding in the private markets. SPACs offer one of the biggest advantages that companies seek out in the private markets — they get to partner with a reputable firm that can help them achieve goals.

Of course this partnership also includes the best aspects of the public market including easier access to capital and liquidity for employees.

In a sense, SPACs offer a happy medium to go public. They do not have to go at it on their own like a direct listing. They do not have to partner with a bank that largely controls the process. SPACs are an in between option that allows companies to largely dictate terms and choose their partners.

Of course, SPACs aren’t perfect and every company needs to weigh the pros and cons of direct listing, SPACs and the traditional IPO process.

SPACs have a long way to go before they become a mainstream way to go public. We are only touching the surface of the SPAC craze and the next year will be fun to watch whether this a trend to stay or whether it will be another 2020 fad.

The IPO Craze

Strike when the iron is hot. That’s what every mature (or somewhat mature) private company is doing right now and going public. It’s quite amazing what’s going on right now. Seemingly every day there’s an announcement of a company going public whether that’s through the traditional method, a SPAC, or a direct listing.

This is undoubtedly a product of the hot market. Of course, when the market is hot, it’s much easier to go public. Capital is easy to come by as everyone wants a piece of the action.

The deeper trend that’s interesting to follow is the bucking of the trend of the 2010s which is that private companies were staying private longer.

Companies that were born in the recession post 2008 such as Airbnb, Lyft, and Uber stayed private much longer than anticipated with Airbnb just making its debut next week and Uber/Lyft last year.

I suspect that this has to do a lot with the rise of modern venture capital firms that funded the rapid growth of these companies while staying out of the public market scrutiny. Things were well… nice and cozy if you were a well funded VC backed startup in the 2010s.

Companies that were born in the mid to late 2010s were born in a bull market and we’re starting to see these companies hit the public markets.

The 2020s started off on a much different foot. A global pandemic that put the markets in panic turned out to be a temporary phenomenon matched by rising stock prices and new all time highs.

Younger startups are now riding the wave of SPACs to go public much earlier hoping for greener pastures. It’s a fascinating trend that’s going to be interesting to watch in the coming years.

Mondays

Mondays have been getting harder and harder for me as I get older.

Part of this is my fault as I don’t get as much rest as one should over the weekends. As my weekend nights get earlier and earlier, I do think I’ll buck this trend soon enough. I know I need to do a better job at getting the rest I need.

I also do think a lot of this is signs of a possible burnout. I know I’ve been working a lot lately and it hasn’t gotten much easier. I know burnout is real and dangerous. I’ve seen it happen first hand quite often and it’s something I am looking to avoid.

I know the fix to all this is simple… but difficult. I need to get more rest and work less. That’s obviously easier said than done. These next few weeks will be unavoidable in terms of work load, but I’m hoping to take a lot of time off at the end of the year and ease into 2021.