Apple Vision Pros

I woke up this morning with an itch to put a pre-order in for the new Apple Vision Pro headset. I am a bit of a technology geek, but not nearly to the levels of some others. I’ve never been one to line up outside of Apple or be the first one to snag the latest tech offerings. But I have to say that I am incredibly intrigued by what Apple has built.

I almost pulled the trigger and was going to decide whether to keep it boxed as a collector’s item or open it for use later. But given that I am at the point of my life where $3,500 is quite a bit of a chunk of change for a fun gadget, I decided to hold off for now.

I will be following along closely and hopefully get to demo some of my friends’ rigs in a few months. It’s probably the most anticipated Apple launch since the iPad, but I still do not know if these goggles will end up being the future of work and leisure.

While undoubtedly cool, I have a hard time seeing everyone working with a headset on all day. I also realize that a lot of joy of entertainment is about sharing it with the people around you and putting on a headset undoubtedly takes away from the ability to chat with friends.

We’ll have to see if this is really the future or if this will be another disappointing “metaverse” like gadget.

Modern tech

Sophia and I went to our first fertility appointment at Spring Fertility today. We wanted to discuss pregnancy with a doctor and take all appropriate tests before going down the journey.

I was fairly shocked by the entire experience end to end. I haven’t been shy about knocking the American healthcare system and it’s without a doubt a flawed system that needs to be redone. At the same time, it is appropriate to appreciate how far healthcare and medicine technology has come.

Sophia and I scheduled everything and filled out all forms via an app called Salve. By the time we showed up, everything was pretty much ready to go. We went and saw the doctor that used a tablet to explain concepts to us.

Sophia had a scan done with a live camera that showed how many follicles she has at the moment. In 5 minutes, the doctor was able to review everything and come up with an assessment for us. We went back in her office, went over more things on her tablet for 10 more minutes. We got our blood tests done quickly. And the coordinator mentioned that everything would be sent to our app including our results and next steps.

It was a wonderful experience end to end. Of course, not every place will be like this, but I had to appreciate how far we’ve come. There’s a lot of hate for tech these days and some of it is well deserving, but behind all these embarrassing stories are amazing human advancements. Modern medicine is one of those advancements in tech that we all need to appreciate.

Sleep and alcohol

I have heard that the positive impact on sleep is usually the biggest impact when someone gives up alcohol. I’m about 9 days in my month long experiment with no alcohol and I can say that this is the best I have felt overall in a long while.

I feel rested and energetic. I feel motivated to get stuff done. Mondays have been a slog for me the past year or so, but I woke up this past Monday ready to get after it. Beyond work, my energy is carrying over to my workouts as well. I set a new PR during my running class on Monday, and went hard on the weights yesterday.

Even after just a week and some change, I’m ready to fully acknowledge that drinking had severely impacted my overall performance, starting with my sleep. I had previously thought that a lot of this just had to do with the fact that I don’t sleep well and I’m very active, but it turns out it’s simply the alcohol impacting my sleep. I’m a bit disappointed in myself that I’ve let it gone on for so long, but I’m happy that I’ve addressed the issue.

As of right now, after a month long break from drinking, my hope is that I’ll be able to go back to drinking occasionally with a much more aware mindset of how it impacts me and my body. Perhaps a month off will allow my body to recover a bit and adjust. I know the mental side of things will be just as important.

I do know now that what was going on before was not sustainable. I feel relieved that I’ve figure things out a bit more.

More layoffs

Seems that Google announced more layoffs on their sales team today after layoffs last week to their engineering team. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen a lot of people in tech predicting that there would be a lot more layoffs in 2024 as companies continue to right size.

Obviously when these happen, it’s sad for everyone involved. It’s a tough job market out there right now and I hope everyone will be able to land on their feet.

From a macro perspective, I do think a lot of these layoffs make sense. It’s been evident for awhile there a lot of tech companies and startups are very bloated. For awhile, it seemed like companies were hiring 2 people for everyone 1 person that leaves. That’s changed as companies seem to no longer be backfilling positions as people leave.

Less headcount has not led to much disruption in business operations. I’ve seen that first hand here at Secfi as we’ve gone more lean and opted to not backfill roles.

We will start hiring again in 2024, but we’ll be a lot more strategic and methodical than we have in the past.

Welcome Coach Fisch

A crazy week for the University of Washington ended yesterday with news that Jedd Fisch would become our head coach. What a week.

We played for the national championship on Monday. After a disappointing loss, the team got home on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we hear rumors that our coach was heading to Alabama. By Friday, it’s official. By Sunday, we’ve hired a new head coach. We had a bunch of players declare for the NFL draft and hit the transfer portal throughout the week as well.

It was a really shitty week by any standards, but getting a coach like Jedd Fisch to come in puts in a damn good situation going forward. It was looking real bleak on Friday, but we’ve stopped the bleeding and can start building our program back up.

I know our expectations are sky high with just playing in the national championship along with our entry into the Big10 next year. But I also know that program building takes time.

Culture is one of, if not the most, important thing in a college football locker room. We had a great culture under our last coach, but unfortunately a lot of that was destroyed with our coaching staff leaving as well as a large number of our players going to the NFL. We’re going to have to be patient with Coach Fisch as he gets his guys in and starts building a culture.

All that said, I am fired up for Coach Fisch and what he brings to the university. While I live in a different world, I feel like we’re at a new start here at Secfi as well so I see a lot of parallels between my company and the UW football team.

Sober experiment - weekend #1

I honestly cannot remember the last time I went an entire weekend without having a drink. Yes, I’ve had weekends where I may have only had a few drinks at dinner one night. But I can’t remember the last time I went stone cold sober. Sitting here writing this on Sunday, I’m through weekend one out my month long experiment.

It definitely was not as difficult as I thought, but I do know it’s the first weekend and most of my friends are also relaxing after a big last weekend. I was craving my Friday after work drink a bit. And going to dinner with a friend who was drinking definitely made me want to share a beer with him. But I felt great waking up Saturday and had a productive day.

I had thought that Saturday night would be difficult as I had my friend’s birthday party and most of the attendees were people I did not know. I had always used alcohol as a social lubricant and as I walked in with my non-alcoholic beer, I wondered if I would last long.

In an interesting way, I felt that I was much more social. I cared a lot more about listening to people’s stories and getting to know them. I felt much more ingrained in conversations. Instead of focusing on my next drink, I was focusing more on the people around me.

Even after missing a round of shots and whatnot, I didn’t really miss drinking. It was a great feeling that I was able to go to a party and have fun while not drinking. Even better, I was able to drive home and get a good night sleep.

I do feel overall better. I’ve slept in a bit less the last couple nights than I normally do on weekends, but I feel much more rested, awake, and motivated. It’s just the first weekend and it’ll get more interesting in the weeks ahead, but I’m liking the results so far.

On loyalty and leaving things better

It’s been a rough well for my University of Washington Huskies. We lost in the National Championship on Monday and our head coach blindsided us by taking the job at Alabama after just two seasons.

Coach DeBoer had two amazing seasons for us and we’ll always be grateful for that. I do understand that college football is a business and loyalty sometimes only goes so far. Coaches sometimes have opportunities that they need to take. Perhaps going to the most storied program in the country is something too good to pass up.

All that said, DeBoer has left UW in a much worse position than he arrived. He arrived with the cupboard stocked from the Chris Petersen era. While he was here, he and the coaches did not recruit up to standards. And with most of the talent leaving for the NFL, the cupboard is now bare.

It’s not a doubt in my mind that this all impacted DeBoer’s decision. He earned the right to go to another job, but without a doubt he made a selfish one. He knew that things would be hard in the next two years rebuilding things. He knew his stock probably wouldn’t be any higher. He knew he was leaving UW’s program in shambles.

This is life in college football unfortunately. I will admit I was completely wrong about who DeBoer was. I don’t think he’s a bad person and I do think he truly cares about his players and others. But above all, he cares about himself and his ascension up the ladder.

I love the mantra leave things better than when you got there. I’ve taken that to every job I’ve gone to. I don’t believe that is something that is high on DeBoer’s priorities unfortunately.

I know a lot of fans and alumni like myself are hurting. But truly I feel awful for the staffers, coaches, and players who were sold a vision. Some people just got to campus last week. This isn’t a business for the meek and everyone will be fine. But this will take some time to get over for sure.

UW will be okay. We have dedicated boosters and alumni who are set on watching us get back to the top.

Tenders, here at last!

It’s a great start to the year for startup employee liquidity as we’ve heard 3 different companies are offering fairly sizable tenders for their employees. No, they aren’t 2021 prices or volume but the fact that there is liquidity coming back into the market is a great indicator for the year.

Tender offers are great as they show investor willingness to invest. Late stage company investing has taken a bit hit the last two years and signs of investors willing to buy common is great.

Second, tenders mean liquidity in the pocket of investors and employees. For investors, they can finally distribute to their LPs and hopefully most of that money will be recycled.

For employees, the draught for liquidity is over for some. They will be able to cash out on their shares and perhaps move on to their next startup. More than anything, this is a positive signal for other startup employees as well. Liquidity may be coming and the belief in startup equity is not dead.

Improving my relationship with alcohol

I had been sensing this for perhaps the last two years or so, but I’m at the point where I’m looking to revisit my relationship with alcohol. At 33, going on 34, my body simply cannot handle drinking the way I do anymore.

I’ve made a lot of changes already in my drinking over the years. I seldom drink on weekdays unless there’s a special occasion. When I do drink, I don’t really “go out” to the bars like I used to in my 20s. I’m almost always in bed by 11-midnight except for special occasions.

Despite the fact that my nights are getting shorter, my the hangovers are still getting worse. The hangovers alone are simply just not worth it anymore. Feeling slightly off on a Saturday or Sunday can be enough to upend the day. Not to mention the impact of sleep can often bleed to Mondays for me.

Perhaps more importantly, I’ve felt that my habits have turned to drinking for the sake of drinking versus to be social. I’ve found myself over the last few months focusing on my drinks versus enjoying the time and place with the people around me. I don’t believe it is destructive yet - I am not blacking out and waking up in ditches or anything, but regardless, this is the trend that scares me the most.

Perhaps that is the first sign of a budding drinking problem or maybe it’s just a period of my life. Regardless, I have no desire to let it play out and I plan on taking some steps to improve my relationship with alcohol.

First, I’ve downloaded the Reframe app. I love the idea of using education to reframe the way I think about alcohol and drinks. I plan on doing 15 minutes a day here daily to help reframe my mind about alcohol.

I’ve also decided to do a sober month until I leave for Mexico City in mid February with Sophia. I don’t really love the idea of dry January as it feels more like a temporary fix like a crash diet, but truthfully, I need a break to see the impact on my life without drinking.

This month will give me time to get back and caught up on sleep and focused on work. I plan on doing a lot of activities I love like snowboarding and golfing. And did I mention, I plan on sleeping. I want to prove to myself that my life can be just as rewarding and social without alcohol as I know it can be.

I do plan on resuming drinking sometime in February, but I hope to have a much better mindset about the drinks. My goals and intentions may change, but I hope that when I do decide to resume drinking, I’ll have a much healthier relationship with alcohol. One in which my focus in social environments is the people around me, not the drink.

Flipping the page

I’m back home after a fun but disappointing trip to Houston. We failed to bring home the hardware and most of Husky Nation is reeling in disappointment still. This one will take awhile to get over.

Michigan did look like the better team pretty much the entire game. We didn’t play well. But yet, we had a lot of opportunities to tie the game or even go up. Regardless of the outcome, I am feeling incredibly grateful for the season and the chance to go to the game.

I was able to catch up with a lot of friends at the tailgate. It was an awesome reunion of friends from college… some of which I hadn’t seen in 10 years. I am pretty beat from the trip and it was an exhausting season.

For now, I am looking forward to a break from football for a bit starting a detox. I haven’t been kind to my body in the last few months. I’ve been doing a lot of drinking lately due to these football games and I feel definitely off.

With the new year and football season finally behind me, it’s time to focus on my health, work and other personal matters.

Counting my blessings

I’m wrapping up a slow week of work today and heading to Houston for the National Championship game tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be back next week writing about this magical season for the Dawgs after we win it all.

After being a fan for 16 years, this has been my dream and I’m ecstatic that I get to watch my Dawgs compete for it all. I’m not taking this for granted and I’m going to enjoy every second of it with my close friends. Husky Football has brought us a lot closer together and I’m forever grateful to be an alum of the University of Washington.

Speaking of counting my blessings, my wife has been dealing with my father-in-law and preparing for him to come home from the rehab facility. It’s been a nightmare to deal with but after reading a lot of stories on the internet, I’ve realized just how lucky we are to have him in the shape that he is in.

Our parents are getting older and we’ll all likely deal with something similar in the future. I’m counting my blessings for the time we have with both Sophia’s parents and my parents as well. I’m feeling incredibly grateful today.

The Happiness Advantage

One of the most influential books I’ve read that has impacted both my personal and work life is The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor. I first read the book about 10 years ago when I was a year out of grad school and in my first job at PwC. I wasn’t happy with being stuck in the rat race and I had focused on a lot of the wrong things when it came to “success” at work.

The Happiness Advantage theory is fairly simple. Happiness and optimism fuels our performance and achievement in life, not the other way around. When I first started work, I was set on working as hard as I could to move up the ladder. If I only worked hard and moved up the corporate ladder, I would live a fulfilling and great life.

Shawn Anchor argues that we have this completely backwards. In fact, happiness precedes “success” at work. This simple theory based on research he conducted at Harvard simply changed my viewpoint of work and the world. From then on, I was focused on living, not neccesarily working.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t work hard. I still did, but I was able to reprioritize a lot of my life to make sure that I focused on personal growth and my own happiness rather than putting every ounce of my energy into arbitrary goals at work. It’s worked out well so far in the last 10 years for me.

As we head into 2024, it’s a a great for me to go back to that theory and remember what is important in life and what fuels success.

2024 mindset

I’m back in office after about 10 days off and I’m feeling pretty good. It was a good break with a nice mix of catching up with friends, family time, and relaxing. As always, it was good to see my sister and spend time with my family during the Christmas time.

I spent most of the days after Christmas trying to do as little as possible. I caught up on sleep and spent more time on my couch unproductive than I have in previous years. It felt good and I really needed it. It was quite obvious I was a bit burnt out and just exhausted from the last few months and I needed a reset.

I’m hoping that this break gave me that much needed reset to set me off right in 2024. While more time off is always good, I hope that I can be a bit more balanced this year. Getting more rest is important, but also having a much better mindset for work is much needed as well.

Over the break, I realized just how poor my mindset has been the last few years when it comes to work. I had a bit of a boom and bust mentality that let myself get too high when things go well, and conversely let myself get too down when things don’t go as well.

When things were booming, I focused solely on work and that became part of who I was. I would work extra hours and exhausted myself from that. It ended up impacting my personal life a bit as well.

In the last year and half, I was admittedly impacted way too much by the down market. The negative news made everything seem like the world was ending. I focused on the negatives of everything. I told myself that I wanted to stay positive, but truly I just kept wishing that things would flip and go back to what it once was. Of course, it’s easy to be unhappy at work and personally when that happens.

This year, I’m vowing to change my mindset at work. There will be good times and there will be tough times, but at the end I need to be much more even keeled through the highs and lows. 2024 is the year of real positivity - one where I show up to work with the mindset that I am blessed to be in this position right now, not one where I am hoping that things get better to bring back my happiness.

I’ll be more productive and my team will be better off because of it. Most importantly, I’ll be a happier person overall.

Happy New Year

It’s been a great 2024 so far. I watched my Washington Huskies beat Texas in the Sugar Bowl to punch a ticket to the national championship game next week. I’ll be there in Houston next week and I can’t wait.

We went 0-12 in my freshman year at UW. The Husky fandom hasn’t always been easy the last 16 years, but we’re finally in the big game and 1 win away from our our first national championship since 1991. It’s been a hell of a season.

I’m back in the office tomorrow and hope to get the year off to a good start. I’m dead today, but generally feeling more energized and ready to get after it.

2024 Goals

Every year I try to set my annual goals for the year. The results have been mixed over the years so I’m going to simplify them. Truth is that I’ve got to celebrate my wins a bit more and take more time to relax and just enjoy life more. So I’m heading into 2024 with 4 achievable goals.

Become conversational in Mandarin

I started learning Mandaring in 2023 and even took a 8 week class. I’m closing in on a year streak on Duolingo. I’ve learned a lot of words, but I know I’m still a bit far out from getting to the point of being conversational. That will be a goal of mine in 2024. I want to take my learning to the next level. That means taking it beyond just learning words and actually using my Mandarin. This will likely require getting a tutor or taking a class which I plan to figure out in January.

Get sleep and feel good again

This was a tough year for me in terms of rest and my body. Some of it was inflicted by just poor decisions and some was just unavoidable. The year of 2024 for me will be one where I get back in control.

I know some bad habits will need to change. I don’t plan on quitting drinking, but I need to do a much better job at saying no or coming home early. It’s no surprise that my weekend drinking is impacting my sleep and happiness. Having less nights out and less drinks when I do go out is a top priority.

I also know that I need to get better sleep even when I’m not drinking. That means putting the phone away at bed time. I’ve gotten into some bad habits with Sophia over the last year and that has undoubtedly impacted my sleep.

Be selfish

2023 was a great year of trying to enjoy life with just Sophia and myself. If things go to plan, we may be extending our family soon enough. While I am looking forward to that, I also realize that my life will change. This year, I want to make sure to be as selfish as possible and do as many activities as possible. I’ll be skiing and golfing more. I want to take a few road trips and travel the world with Sophia as much as possible this year.

Start exploring cash flowing businesses

Ever since joining Secfi, I’ve largely put my education on small businesses on hold. It was something that I was very passionate about just a few years ago. My life got too busy working at a small startup and I didn’t put much time or effort in learning the latest trends anymore.

I want to get back into that this year. I have no plans to leave Secfi, but I also know that perhaps my long-term future can be running a small business at some point. Starting in 2024, I want to get back into this and start learning more about running or buying a cash flowing business.

I bought a car!

I haven’t been through the car buying purchase since I was in high school when my Dad was buying me a car for the first time. Lots has obviously changed in the last 18 years since I did that.

The amount of transparency and information out there about the car buying process is night and day. Largely gone are the days of dealers using information asymmetry to rip off all their buyers. Although, it is clear that there are just a lot of people who don’t bother do the research and unfortunately succumb to their tricks.

I ended up buying the car that we initially were going to buy, the Toyota Rav4 Hybrid. It was my first choice a few weeks ago due to the gas mileage, resale value, and reliability. I really enjoyed the first test drive and it felt like I was driving a full electric car despite being a hybrid.

Most important for me was getting a good deal though so Sophia and I had to shop around a bit more. We pondered leasing a more expensive luxury car such as an Audi Q5, Volvo VC60, or a Lexus RX350. We test drove them all and they were all great cars. I ran the numbers and had my mind set on a number that we were willing to pay extra for over the course of 3 years.

Unfortunately, the dealerships we worked with couldn’t get to the number we were looking for. We got them down the majority of the way, but they couldn’t get that last piece so we walked. I’m proud that Sophia and I set our limit and stuck to it.

Things came full circle for us as we went from Rav4 Hybrid to Rav4 gas to leasing a luxury SUV and finally back to the Rav4 Hybrid. For us, the splurge on the hybrid plus higher trim with better features was our smart splurge. Yes, we’re paying the cost of that, but the resale value of these cars is so high that we’d be able to recover most of it.

As for dealerships, most that we dealt with were great and straight forward. There were definitely a few bad apples though. Some dealerships definitely tried to withhold information especially on the leases. One dealership we worked with in particular was using a lot of bait and switch tactics to get me to come in. It was awful.

We ended up going with the first dealership we went to at San Francisco Toyota. They were by far the best we dealt with. From the first test drive to the closing process, it was a great experience and I’m glad that we worked with them. It wasn’t rocket science. Be trustworthy and helpful. It’s no surprise we stuck with the dealership that gave us the most unbiased information and was very transparent about pricing.

I’m glad the process is over. Sophia and I may need to plan a few more road trips this next year.

Merry Christmas

I’ve been busy hanging out with my family the last couple of days and really had no desire to be on a computer or write. It’s been a bit of a relief to get away for a bit.

Luckily work has also slowed down a bit and it looks like I’ll be able to enjoy the next week or so and take some real time off.

The saying goes that you didn’t know you needed a vacation until you had one. Well I knew I needed some time off but I’m definitely realizing that I REALLY needed time off.

I plan on being lazy these next few days and just get my mind off work and being productive. I’m excited for it.

I had a good Christmas with the family. It’s nice spending time with everyone. One thing that I’ve started to do as I’ve gotten older is start counting how many more Christmases I’ll have left with my family. It’s a bit sad to think about it this way, but it also puts things in perspective.

In all likelihood, I’ll have spent more Christmases with my family at this point in my life than I have left with everyone. That means I want to maximize my time and never take this for granted. Merry Christmas!

Holiday Break Intentions

I’m finally starting to feel the holiday spirit as I hope to wrap up work today and shut down for a couple of weeks. I have a few more hours worth of work to wrap up a few things, and hopefully that’ll be it for 2023.

Thankfully, I don’t have any major plans for the holidays except rest. I hope to see some friends and family over the next two weeks, but besides that I want to catch up on sleep and let my body heal a bit.

I’ve felt run down many times this year including recently in early December. I’ve been sick more times this past year than I probably have any other year prior. I’ve had periods of very low motivation that I haven’t had previously. It isn’t a great sign and I need a big reset going into 2024.

I’m looking forward to it.

Financial discipline

Sophia and I are in the market for a new car right now and we’ll likely make a purchase this week. The past few years we’ve been driving my sister’s high school car, a 2010 VW Jetta as a beater through San Francisco. It’s been great not really caring about it and street parking it without issues. But my Dad now needs a car and we figured we give him this one and finally buy a car.

Especially given that we haven’t had a car payment for the last 3 years, we’re sitting a pretty good financial position to buy a good car. We’ve been a bit all over the place going from a reliable Toyota to a luxury Audi.

One thing that I’m happy about is that we’ve been doing a good job staying financially disciplined. Yes, we can probably afford to spend a bit more on a nicer car, but Sophia and I have been doing our best to battle the life style creep. I was close to pulling the trigger last week, but Sophia reminded me of the life style creep and I’m proud of her for that.

Going into the next few days, we’ve got a great plan in place in that if we get a great lease deal on a nicer car, we’ll gladly take that and return it after 3 years when we have a clearer picture of our personal needs and the EV market. It needs to be a great deal of course and we have our budgets set to drive a hard baragain.

If we’re not able to get there, we’ll just buy a reliable and great car that holds their value well so we can look to resell or upgrade in a few years down the road.

Celebrating 2023

I prioritized rest and sleep this weekend and I feel both energized and positive today. It’s been a sluggish few weeks of Mondays given recent happenings so this is a big win today. I’ll looking to grind a few more days of good work to set us up to close out 2023 strong and start 2024 with some momentum. Then I’ll start my holiday break with intention of rest.

Our product team put out a fantastic deck to the entire company highlighting everything we built and the accomplishments of 2023. I am incredibly proud of the product and engineering team and what they have built despite a tough year. The numbers are telling and we’ve made huge leaps in 2023.

Going through the deck made me realize just how much we have to celebrate in the year. Like every startup, revenue is king and we of course prioritize that metric. But there’s so much more that goes into building a long-lasting company than just revenue, and I’m glad our entire company was able to celebrate our accomplishments together.