Market optimism

I’m back in Amsterdam for a couple days working out of the office here before I go to Spain for a week long vacation. It’s nice being out here again… even the jet lag can’t kill my vibe right now. Seriously though, someone needs to help me fix my jet lag issues. I already suck at sleeping and going across the world makes my life miserable for at least a week.

On another note - 2 years and a day ago today on March 16, 2020, was the largest single day drops in S&P 500 and Dow Jones history. I recall the next 2 weeks after that to be one strange one. Some investors and analysts began calling for doom and complete economic failure in the coming weeks. People were panicking and selling anything they could.

While I lived through 2008, I wasn’t old enough to have money in the market or have a 401k. I didn’t know how to react. So I tried to learn from some of the smartest and rationale people in the industry. I read. I listened to podcasts. It helped me keep my calm and hold onto my positions although of course I nor anyone else in the world knew what would happen.

Fast forward a few months later and we saw a V-shaped recovery and a subsequent bull market began. My stocks were hitting all time highs again and again. It was a huge period of wealth growth.

Yes - my positions are down quite a bit from those all time highs. Yes it hurts. I am not trying to say that a V-shaped recovery will happen once again later this year.

So why am I optimistic on the markets? Because history has shown that the markets have continued to grow over a long enough time horizon. Corrections are normal in the market. I do not spend my precious time trying to outsmart the world and time the markets.

Things will be better in the future - when that happens, no one knows. I do know that I’ll be glad that I didn’t panic and stuck to my guns.

Startup optimism

Hello from Arnhem, Holland. It’s absolutely gorgeous here… green.. trees…. farms. It’s very serene. I landed in Amsterdam yesterday morning and took an hour Uber ride our resort at Arnhem. The Dutch countryside is gorgeous. We’ll be here for a few days for our management team offsite as we plan for the year ahead. I’m writing this as I eat breakfast and will soon be going on a quick run.

I wrote a bit last week on how everything seems to be bad news these days. War, inflation, markets, political turmoil, etc. The good news is that despite everything happening in the world, we have a lot to be optimistic about.

While the public markets have been volatile with 50-80% pullbacks in growth stocks, the private markets have been chugging along. Yes, there is a slow down and contraction in valuations. The private markets are correlated to the public markets whether some people want to believe it or not. So why the optimism in the private markets?

Simple. Innovation hasn’t stopped. We have more entrepreneurs, operators, and VCs in tech than ever before. The market and geopolitical events have not stopped people from building. I witness this on a day to day basis and I read about new startups doing amazing things every single day.

There’s a lot to be worried about in the world, but builders building is not one of them. In fact, we have perhaps seen the opposite as multiples startups have shifted to helping the cause in Ukraine.

This surge in private markets have been optimistic about the future. Public markets aside, we are in for a lot of innovation in the coming next few years.

Optimism for the future

I saw some VCs arguing over issues in the 90s compared to issues in this decade. Maybe I was young and naive, but it sure felt like the 90s were much more calm. For one, we didn’t start the decade off with a global pandemic that brought the world and economy to a halt. World War 3 is on the brink of starting in 2022. You can sprinkle plenty of human right issues and domestic turmoil as well in between.

There doesn’t seem to be much good news spreading around nowadays and it’s admittedly exhausting. Human outlook for the future seems to be at a low point.

I’ve even noticed that my blog posts have started to switch to a negative viewpoint recently. So I’ve decided I’m going to start writing more with an optimistic lens. Despite the bad news lately, there’s a lot of reasons to be optimistic today and in the future. I want to focus on those points and turn my mindset around.

I’ll start tomorrow with what I’m seeing in the private markets and reasons to be optimistic.

The end of an era

It’s been a week since I wrote a blog post as I have been just swamped. We had management team meetings in San Francisco and then I went right into my best friend’s bachelor party in Mexico City. I got back last night and took today off to get my life back in order and recover. It’s a much needed day of R&R.

I’ve had a bit of time today to reflect on the trip and wanted to write some thoughts.

We had 11 guys who became good friends in college hanging out and celebrating from Wednesday through Sunday. While we talked about life and everything going on right now, it was largely a weekend of going back to our youths.

We joked. We partied. We stayed up way too late. For one weekend, we acted like we are in our early 20s again and ignored our responsibilities. It was a glorious weekend that I wish lasted a lot longer.

Of course, that’s not how life works. We all went home to our lives all over the country. Most went back to their jobs today. Pretty soon some, if not most, of us will have bigger responsibilities such as a family. Our time to partake in this youthful adventures are coming to an end for better or for worse.

One one hand, our bodies are no longer able to keep up. I’m absolutely exhausted and hope to do nothing but rest for the next week. It’s going to feel nice actually getting some sleep and feeling healthy again.

On the other hand, I couldn’t help but feel like this trip was the beginning of the end of an era. One of my closest friend’s bachelor parties in Mexico City. If things go as planned, we should have a few more of these coming up in the coming years, but these trips will slowly start looking more and more different.

There’ll be less people able to attend. It’ll be much less spring break and more like golf trips. It’s the end of the youthful party era. It’s a reality that I’ve come to embrace and accept - my body will thank me for it, but I’m going to miss this chapter of my life a lot.

Unity and hope

There’s been encouraging news coming out of Ukraine and around the world the last couple of days. The Russian invasion has been repelled and Ukraine’s defense has surprised many in holding up. The country has rallied around to fight the invading force.

Around the rest of the world, country after country have banded together to impose sanctions on Russia and provide support to the Ukrainian defense. These sanctions will be crippling to the Russian economy.

Even both Democrats and Republicans in the United States have largely put aside their differences to unify against Putin.

Putin has truly done something special… he has unified the United States and the whole free world against him.

For the first time since the invasion began, I’ve started to have hope that this act of war will lead to a peaceful ending with Putin being stripped of power. We’re not in the clear yet. There is a lot of hurt and suffering that will happen before things are over.

The breadth of the Russian sanctions will cripple the Russian economy and have ripple effects throughout the entire world as well. I hope this pain is short lived… the Russian people didn’t want Putin’s war.

I have no idea how the rest of the war will play out. The Ukrainians are still outnumbered. Putin is still a loose cannon that has threatened nuclear war. But with unity, there is hope. For once in a long while, the United States and our allies are unified against a common enemy. That’s a dangerous prospect for those who oppose freedom.

Ukraine and the start of something...

I’m up in Tahoe for a few days as I try to sneak in a few days of snowboarding before the season ends. It looks like this may be the last time I get up unless I can sneak some spring skiing in April. It’s been a lackluster season… seems like all the snow hit in December.

Last night we finished up some work on the couch while we watched Russia invade Ukraine on CNN. It’s scary times right now. I’m a student of history and while this may seem like it’s isolated to Eastern Europe, there are much broader implications. How far will Putin go? Let’s hope that Ukraine is all that he wants.

Unfortunately, looking back at history, people like Putin do not typically stop.

I have no idea how this will all end. Worse case is that this is the start of World War III of course. That won’t end well for anyone on the planet.

For now, I’m keeping the people of Ukraine in my mind and hoping the best for them. I have friends who immigrated to the US from Ukraine and they have very strong words for Russia and Putin. I’m hoping that their families stay safe.

Work hard, relax harder

Things are about to get pretty even more hectic in the next coming month. I head up to Tahoe tomorrow to get some time on the mountain… trying to sneak in some time on the mountain before the season ends.

When I get back, I go straight into management meetings in San Francisco followed by Mexico City for a bachelor party. I have a few days at home before I head to Amsterdam for a team offsite and then some time in office to meet the new hires. Then I’m off to Spain for some R&R.

I tagged on a Spain in order to get some time away by myself and get a mental reset. I have felt that I’ve long needed a vacation where I relax and get away from things. It’s been 4+ months since my last trip where I did next to nothing and just relaxed.

I’ve always been pretty terrible at relaxing and doing nothing. I feel like this year it’s gotten a bit worse with added responsibilities at work and personally. My last few trips have been very activity intensive where I feel more tired coming back than when I left. This time around, I’m going to do my best to read, meditate and just do close to nothing.

For now, I’ve got a big month ahead that I’ll need to grind through. It’s going to a lot of fun, but going to require a lot of focus and mental energy. I’ll work hard and then look to relax harder.

Staying positive

The long weekend was nice, but over far too soon. There’s a whole mess of things going on right now in the world. It’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

We’ve got war waiting to break out at any point in Eastern Europe. We have the stock market down with no bottom in sight. Politics in our country have hit a low point.

I try to ignore things as much as I can and focus on the things I can control. Unfortunately, much of these world events have impacts on my work and personal life so it’s hard to ignore completely.

I caught up with a friend and business colleague a few hours ago and he mentioned that he’s tired of everything right now. I can relate completely. We’re all tired and the last few months have been tough.

As hard as it may seem right now, I know things will pass and there will be better days ahead. I just need to stay positive and keep pushing through. A little extra sleep will probably help too.

Everything including bars is a fintech

Well I can’t remember the last time I was denied entry into a bar but it happened today at 5:45 as I was trying to grab a drink while I fire off my last few emails before the weekend.

I was wearing my Fintech Today hoodie and walked in when the guy referred me to his dress code sign.

Yes, this is in San Francisco. Perhaps one of the only bars in SF that has a dress code. No wonder the joint was empty at 5:45pm on a Friday.

He apparently didn’t know that everything (including bars) is FinTech. I kid….

Young entrepreneurship

I started writing my daily blog about the market volatility, but then my 11 year old sister called with a proposal. She wants me to help her sell her colored bands that she made this weekend. Her goal is to make enough money to buy me a Tesla for my birthday next month.

While really cute, I’m actually pretty impressed by her entrepreneurship and thought this could be a great learning experience for her. I started my own business around her age burning CDs and movies and selling it to my classmates.

It’s never easy giving up your weekend plans, but I thought this was a good opportunity for her to learn how business works and I should support her rather than put it down.

Maybe one day she’ll actually buy me a Tesla.

Financial decisions

I’ve spent the last couple hours reviewing my assets and investments. I’m looking to make a sizable purchase in the next week and given the market adjustments, I wanted to review my portfolio and ensure that I was making a smart financial decision.

It takes some time and hard analysis, but I believe it’s the smart move. It’s easy to get overextended in certain asset classes when there’s a big drawdown in the market like the last month. As expected my portfolio and assets were all out of balance.

My gut was right in this one and I ended up going through with the move I was planning to do. Big financial decisions aren’t ever easy. Even as I’ve grown my net worth and invest larger sums of money over the years, I still see big dollar amounts like I’m still a teenager. It’s part of my upbringing.

Knowing that, I sleep better at night when I know I’ve run the numbers and am making a smart decision. I’m glad I spent the time running the numbers and can justify the big purchase.

Dumb metrics

I am generally a fan of metrics, but I know metrics are very limiting and only tell part of a story. My general rule of thumb for metrics is that if you measure and report it, then you need to be prepared for the number to be gamed in some way or form.

There’s also a lot of what I call “dumb” metrics for lack of a better term. These are metrics that are reported to measure one thing, but end up have negative effects that outweigh the benefit of measuring that one thing to begin with.

One example of this was the infamous metric, “utilization” often used in large consulting and accounting firms. I spent 5 years at one of these firms and while my experience was largely positive, one of the silliest things that the firm did was put heavy weight on utilization.

In short, utilization is a measure of billable client hours over the total amount of hours you are working. It’s intended to measure how much one contributes to client service (aka revenue) of the firm. Now the metric is innocent enough as on the surface you’d want people who are highly utilized, i.e. generating revenue for the firm.

In practice, this metric ended up being gamed, caused burn out and/or ended up being the luck of the draw.

One metric at review time was always utilization. Given that your promotions and raises were made based on utilization and given that you self-reported time, what ended up happening was people would exaggerate the amount of hours or bill the client more than needed. Yes, it was unethical, but it was such common practice in these firms that nearly everyone did it.

Those who were chasing high utilization ended up slaving away and destroying their work-life balance in chase of this magic utilization number. It was never a good outcome to watch someone be 200% utilized (~80 hours a week) consistently.

Lastly, you had the bunch that just had difficult clients or were on terrible projects that crashed your utilization rates. Sometimes we would have our best people on these projects but they would never get promoted because their utilization was too low.

This “dumb” metric has led to thousands of people quitting the firm, but yet to my knowledge, the firm was still using it to track development. At startups, you need to make sure you’re not tracking dumb metrics. There’s no time for these metrics where the downside outweighs the benefits for your staff and team.

Self-care day

We have the day off at Secfi today intended to give people a personal day. While this wasn’t planned to be on Valentine’s Day, we thought it was a nice overlap and timing worked out nicely.

Self-care means different things for different people. For myself, I am looking to clear my inbox and get caught up on a few things this morning. Once I’m done, I plan on reading, relaxing and possibly going on a quick run. I’ll finish the day off cooking dinner for Sophia for Valentine’s Day.

I know others at the company are looking to binge watch Netflix or go on a hike. Whatever works for each individual is what’s best. The goal is that every does indeed take the day off for self-care.

One shot

For the first time possibly ever, my golf swing is feeling good and I am playing confident. I’m still far from being good, but I shot a 44 on the front 9 today with a few missed makeable putts and two atrocious iron shots that I wish I could have back. It’s fun seeing my practice and effort turn into something positive. Only took about two years.

On a similar note, I have a new appreciation for Olympians. Like many, I thought the Olympics were pretty boring but my fiance loves it. She’s made me watch some of the bigger events and athletes such as Chloe Kim and Shaun White compete.

It’s definitely entertaining but the thing that got me more appreciative of the Olympics is just how fragile the opportunity is. People train for the whole lives (and 4 years between) to compete in the Olympic games. The actual competition in most sports typically means <5 minutes of actually performing. Years of training for less than 5 minutes.

I cannot comprehend that pressure. One screw-up in some events means that the games are completely over for you. Luckily, my job doesn’t force me to train for years for one shot.

Is this time different?

Anyone that pays attention to fintech will know that there has been a meteoric rise in startups bringing alternative investments to retail investors. These alternative asset classes can range anywhere from simple active managed portfolios to the masses all the way to Robinhood for investing in art.

It’s been fascinating to watch as these startups are suddenly allowing retail investors the chance to invest in fractional pieces of art, wine, hand bags, or providing them access to actively managed funds in both equity and real estate. I’m generally a fan of these startups. It’s fun to invest in different asset classes and I’d argue that a lot of portfolios deserve an allocation in these different alternative investments.

One observation that is consistent and somewhat scary is that many of these alternative investment platforms are claiming alpha, i.e. returns that are beating the market right now.

On the surface, 2-3 years of beating the market may look a no brainer to invest, but in reality you don’t judge a fund’s performance based off 2-3 years. The real truth comes over time. Can this fund or investment actually out perform the market over a sustained period of time like 10 years?

History will tell us no. Most hedge funds underperform the market even before fees. History will say that you likely will be better off just investing in the S&P 500. It’s hard to argue with data.

So is this time really different? I have no idea.

I do know one thing and that’s tech is growing at an unprecedented rate which is enabling gains previously unattainable in the past. You can grow a company much faster today than you could 10 years ago simply due to tech advances. Blockchain and crypto is something that obviously didn’t exist over the last 50 years.

We may very well be on a new uncharted path. Maybe this time will be different or maybe history will show that everything will continue back to normal over the long run.

I wouldn’t bet my life savings on either, but I got a feeling that things are going to be slightly different this time around. While I wait to see what happens, I’m going to continue to diversify and ensure I make smart bets that can allow me to participate if this time is truly different, but be safe if things are not.

Raising the bar

I used to work at one of the largest firms/partnerships in the world. Like a lot of companies/firms that make partners, i.e. equity owners of the firm, there was always a unique power dynamic. The firm would only make a certain amount of partners a year so it was competitive all the way up and often decisions were made that would hurt the firm and teams in the long run.

People were always looking to step over each other on their way up. Whenever someone new came onto our engagement team, everyone selfishly looked towards how it impacts them versus the firm and the team. Managers would hate new Directors who were brought in to oversee them because they took their promotion spot. Directors would hate new partners to the firm as it took their spots. I absolutely hated this.

My experience at Secfi has fortunately largely been completely different. We’re constantly looking to raise the bar meaning hiring the best talent to come in at all points. Sometimes this means hiring someone to take over your previous role or hiring someone who is going to be sitting above you on the org chart. I went through both experiences these past few months.

Admittedly, it took a bit of adjustment in either scenario. I have been with Secfi from nearly the beginning and hiring someone to take over what you’ve built, or manage you is a bit weird at times. I am constantly training upwards. Despite the minor awkwardness, everything is largely positive when you bring in new talent.

New talent means perspectives and experience gained that we were previously missing. This new talent if done right will lead to to net positives across the entire organization.

This of course means that early employees at healthy and growing startups will often need to put egos aside for the greater good of the company. It’s not often easy, but something that needs to be done if you want the company to grow. The beauty behind putting your ego aside to acquire talent is that employee is often a direct recipient of the benefits, even from an individual perspective.

In my experience, we continue to bring over highly talented individuals with much more experience than myself. One could look at this as more bosses, but I like to think that I’ve acquired more mentors as I progress in my career. On top of my personal development, my work load and stress levels continue to go down as these new hires get onboarded.

It’s amazing to see what happens when we continually raise the bar. I’m more excited than ever to be at Secfi and I continue to look forward to hiring more talent regardless of where they sit within the org structure.

Market turmoil

When I introduce Secfi to other operators and investors, one of the questions I almost always get is how the market effects our business. Our financing contracts require clients to only pay us back after an IPO or an exit so there are of course market forces in play. A tough market means less IPOs meaning we get paid back less.

It’s a valid concern, but something that we aren’t too concerned about. We know market downturns are going to happen so we’re always prepared for when they come. While we can’t time or predict the market, we know that corrections happen often and prepare for them accordingly.

Furthermore, while we cannot ignore 50%+ drawdowns in tech, we also play the long game. We believe in the companies we partner with in the long run despite what may be happening in the markets today. Innovation does not stop when there is a correction in the market. We are betting in the future and the future is tech.

Our financing is made to protect clients in these downturn events. While it may be stressful to hear that an IPO has been pushed back, clients can rest easy knowing that they’re not on the hook to pay back anything during these periods of correction.

Web3 Communities

I’ve seen a lot of people talking about web3 and one of the key components that people love to mention is the buzz word, decentralized. Sure moving towards a decentralized world is a key benefit of blockchain technology. The decentralized vs centralized debate going on both in between web3 and outside of web3 is an exhausting argument that I won’t rehash at this point.

Instead, I want to focus on writing about one amazing aspect of web3 that is not getting enough love: the community aspect. The concept of creating a community has ingrained roots within web3.

Most NFT projects are the most basic sense are communities. Most people are surprised that people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a JPEG, but those that make the argument are missing the point. That JPEG or token is simply a membership into specific communities. You aren’t buying a picture of an ape, you are buying more of a status symbol and an exclusive membership that others do not have access to.

I do not buy into any NFT projects without checking out the community first. Discord has how these communities communicate and I will lurk in the Discord for a bit before deciding to move forward. The project is only as good as the community that you are buying into.

People criticizing web3 are spending too much time focusing on the prices and speculation happening in web3 and they are missing the amazing community building happening. Let’s take a few examples from my projects recently:

• The LinksDAO community voted to donate to charity and buy back membership passes for users who got previously hacked

• A LinksDAO community member bought a young college kid a membership pass because the college kid couldn’t afford to join

• IlluminatiNFT community organized a group for newcomers to web3 to learn. Experienced web3 members are mentoring and providing critical advice in regards to security in this group.

These are just small examples of amazing things happening day to day in these web3 communities. I love being part of the communities I have bought into and I am planning to stay loyal because of that community.

Corrections

I had coffee with an investor who is also one our biggest partners at Secfi yesterday. She asked me my thoughts on the stock market right now and if I thought this was a permanent correction.

My response was an easy no. My view is that this is a correction from the effects of H2 of 2020 and all of 2021 when we saw money haphazardly flying into companies at ridiculous valuations. It was happening in the private markets and public markets at rates never seen before.

No one should really be surprised that there’s a pullback or a correction. The aspect that caught most people offguard is the severity of the pullback as most tech stocks are down 50-80%.

I think we’ll start to see things settle down quite a bit in the coming weeks. The Fed has signaled that the fun and games of (nearly) free money is over and investors are adjusting for that.

I don’t think we’ll see another V-shape recovery like we did in 2020, but I do believe that tech and growth stocks will rebound eventually. When that will happen is the million dollar question of course.

In times of uncertainty, I like to stick my guns. Tech is the future and I’m still long a lot of my portfolio. There will be better days ahead.

NY, NY

I find it crazy how big of a difference New York is right now compared to San Francisco. New York has effectively gone back to life as it was pre-pandemic. Bars and restaurants are packed. I walked by a few places last night that were packed to the brims. People are back to going to the office full time again.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, everyone is still largely working from home. Masks are required in gyms. Downtown SF is still a ghost town during the work day.

It’s a bit depressing. While I know SF will never be the same as NY, there just feels like a lack of energy in the city. I’m hoping we get back to some semblance of normalcy in SF sooner than later.

I’m in NY for 2 more days. I absolutely love this city, but it’s always exhausting. I’m beat and taking tonight easy before I close out the work week tomorrow.