The Future of Work is about Access

The future is here, but it isn’t evenly distributed.

How do we fix this?

This is one of the big questions facing our society today. I think most of the issues we face stem, in some part, from the fact that huge swaths of our population have been left behind by the modern economy. You have people building AI, robots, virtual worlds. People building applications and software by themselves. People building businesses around their brands and interests. And then you have Steel workers in Indiana. And artists in Portland. And assembly line workers in Detroit. And Fisherman in South Carolina.

It seems like the growing divide between the digital natives and the technologically illiterate is the elephant in the room of all of our modern discourse.

And what is odd is that the aspirational path of wealth creation through technology entrepreneurship has never been more attainable. I’d go as far as to say that never in the history of mankind has the path to wealth creation been possible for so many.

So why does it feel like it is anything but for so many?

Nothing good comes from people feeling like they have been separated from their chance at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They feel disenfranchised. They find themselves growing resentful and disengaged. They resort to pulling others down instead of trying to pull themselves up.

That is why I am so excited about the future of work. I believe that it has the potential to ameliorate so many of the woes in our society by providing access to the modern technology-based economy to those who have always felt it out of reach.

To me, the future of work isn’t just about productivity tools, remote work, and the next evolution of B2B SaaS. It is about all of those things to a degree, sure. And those things are exciting in their own right.

But what really gets me excited is the potential that the future of work has to increase access to entrepreneurship. It can do this in a lot of ways. It can remove friction and barriers of entry for people. It can educate, upskill, and equip people with the tools and knowledge to build technology-based businesses and income streams. It can allow people to unbundle their work from their employment and it can even allow people to make money practicing their hobbies.

The crazy thing is that the tools are all out there. The knowledge too! That isn’t the issue. Access to the modern economy is not some secret guarded by technocrats.

Instead, it is a diamond hidden under a metric ton of shit.

Google “passive income.” Go ahead. I’ll still be here when you come back.

Hey! Welcome back. If you spend 5 seconds browsing how to build passive income on the internet you’ll get a bunch of lame slick-haired-used-car-salesman types in video thumbnails with sportscars and beach houses they rented trying to sell you products and courses you don’t want or need.

It has never been easier for someone with zero technological know-how to learn how to use no code tools or platforms like Shopify to build businesses online.

And yet, we get these seedy con artists selling us snake oil.

I am optimistic though.

The hard part is building the tools and platforms to provide access to the modern economy. That is happening. There are more and more onramps for the technologically unsophisticated into the modern economy each and every day. Here is the list I maintain of my favorite resources.

I am not sure what I am going to do in my career, but I know that whatever it is I want to be part of the solution to helping people build wealth through technology-based entrepreneurship. That is what I am really excited to build. Either by investing in teams building it or building it myself, I want to provide the tools and platforms necessary to build the mom and pop corner store of the future online.

The future of work isn’t about SaaS. It isn’t about productivity tools or remote work.

It is about access.

Access to a lifestyle and a way of building that has been locked behind the doors of technical, financial, and ethnic privilege.

Until now.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning (or the occasional Tuesday).

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Quality

Sometimes you come across a concept that just sticks with you.

I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance a couple of years ago now, but there are a couple of concepts from the book that I find myself thinking of often. None more so than the idea of Quality.

For those who haven’t read it, the book is part fiction, part philosophy textbook, part autobiography, and part holy tome. It is an exploration of one man’s metaphysical journey to uncover the meaning behind the word “Quality” and the toll it took on him.

I’m not sure the book ever truly comes to a definitive answer, but if I had to sum it up I would say that something is of high quality if there is a sense that it is doing what it’s supposed to do. That it’s doing it well. That it’s fulfilling its purpose. That it is acting in accordance with its identity.

Quality is a certain rightness. It’s hard to put your finger on, but it is clear whether it is there or not.

The idea of Quality shows up everywhere once you are looking for it. In the startup world, we call it “product market fit.”

Product market fit is when there is a resonance between what you are building and a problem that needs solving in the world. When customers want your product so badly they are basically ripping it out of your hands. I love Michael Seibel’s description of product market fit in this week’s Invest Like the Best episode. He describes the utter craziness you experience when your company finds product market fit. There is no time to sit around waxing philosophically on whether or not you have found this mythical equilibrium between a product and a market need, you are simply running around like crazy trying to keep all your servers from getting shut down by a complete deluge of users.

I think we see the idea of Quality in our personal lives too.

I remember a crisp fall day in college when my fraternity was asking a sorority to go with us to homecoming (a tradition that I have nothing but fondness for due, in no small part, to the role it played in introducing my wife and I). There was another fraternity that was asking this same sorority, so things were pretty competitive and the stakes laughably high. I spent that day running all over campus wheeling and dealing. Cajoling and entreating. I was trying to get my brothers organized at the same time I was coming up with new ideas for events we could hold. I didn't have a chance to sit around and think, I was too busy problem solving and executing. Now the context around this example is a little silly, but I remember at one point having this shock of clarity where I thought "This is awesome. I am good at this. I like this." Creative problem solving, communication, taking action, working on a team. I was doing something that perfectly fit my strengths. And it felt amazing.

Unfortunately in life, I think we so often experience the idea of Quality through its absence. There may be a wrongness in our lives that we struggle to explain. We may feel tired, disjointed, frantic, and anxious. We may feel like we are doing something wrong but we don't quite know what. We feel somehow less than what we know we could be.

I know I've experienced this dissonance. This dearth of Quality. If Quality is finding that magical apex of purpose where we are doing exactly what we should be, then anything else is a fundamental breach of our identity. There are gradients to this of course, but I believe that over time, the results of sustained actions that run counter to our core self are inevitably disastrous.

If you are in a career or relationship that is discordant with your notion of your own identity and purpose, it will eat away at you. For a day, a month, or maybe even years, it can be tolerable. We can pull the wool over everyone's eyes, including our own. But eventually, it will degrade you in a way that leaves a mark.

Maybe you are just so drained you miss a step in other places of your life. Maybe you are irritable or quick to judge when you know you are naturally easy-going. Worst of all, maybe you start to shift your core identity away from what you know to be true in order to somehow make the days and years more tolerable.

I look around me and see this among my peers and friends. As I get started at business school I see it in my new classmates. I have felt it myself in my career and life. A fundamental mismatch between what I am doing and what I should be doing. I think that it is natural to experience this in life. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it is part of the human experience.

The unease you feel when acting counter to who you know yourself to be is actually a good thing. It is the latent potential energy that pulls you towards finding that apex of Quality where you are acting in a way that is core to your conception of self. Don't avoid it or pretend it isn't there. Lean into it. Ask yourself why you are feeling this way. What needs to change? Who are you? If you saw your ideal conception of yourself in this situation how would you expect them to act? How are you acting differently? Why are you acting differently?

Quality in sport, business, and life is magical. It is poetry in motion. It is a master at work on their craft. It is an internal rhythm and music that is in sync with the world around it. Like a tool in the toolbox that does exactly what it was designed to do and does it to perfection, living in accordance with your identity is the path to joy. Joy. Not happiness. Happiness is a stimulus-response from external actions. Joy is the music that your soul makes when you find the resonance point where your actions and words align perfectly with your identity, strengths, and purpose.

When you’ve found it, appreciate it and try to hold on to it. It may take years to build towards this resonance but, like a note played jarringly out of key, it can be lost in an instant by acting counter to who you are.

If you aren't there yet. That's ok! I'm not either. We've got time. People forget that life is long and full of possibilities. But pay attention. Pay attention to how your actions and the words you say make you feel. Pay attention to whether a relationship makes you feel better about yourself or worse. Pay attention to whether coworkers act in accordance with your value system or not. Social pressure is a helluva drug and if you surround yourself by people who act in a way that is discordant to you, it will be extremely hard not to eventually adjust yourself to appease them.

Stay strong. Stay curious. Think about yourself, and who you are, and what you were put on this earth to do. You may not have all the answers, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be asking the questions.

Whatever you do don’t settle. There is no quicker way to ruin your life than to accept a discordant path as "just the way it is". How many drones are there in our society who spend time with people who make them feel less then they are? Who work at jobs they hate? Corporate soldiers committing atrocities against others and themselves because they are just following orders. Wayword tools in the tool kit. Without purpose, form, or function.

If you are reading this and think, “man Erik woke up on the existential side of the bed this morning,” there is probably some truth in that. All this discussion of purpose and identity can sound a little whimsical at times.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth in here. I hope I am getting to the heart of things. Maybe I am just dancing around it. Either way, I think it could be helpful for you to think about as I know it has been for me.

Our society holds up ideals that, for most of us, are of poor Quality. It worships freedom instead of purpose. Pleasure instead of joy. Memories instead of meaning. It tells us that work is only a means to an end and that relationships are worthwhile as long as they serve us.

I am not wise. I don't know how the world works better than anyone else. I am trying to figure it all out and these writings are a record of my thoughts and how they evolve. But one thing I have learned is that freedom is only a means to an end. True freedom is having the ability to choose what to commit yourself too and then doing so wholeheartedly.

If you are feeling ill at ease with where you are in life, join the club. Most of us do. Finding capital-Q “Quality” in our lives is the rarified air of a select few who choose not to settle for anything less than exemplary. Who refuse to bear the burden of a life lived in discord to oneself. Who stare into the face of the lies we are told, standing unassailably and whisper, "not for me."

It isn’t an easy path, but the right path rarely is.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning (or the occasional Tuesday).

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

With Speed! With Speed!

With Speed! With Speed!

If you have ever watched an Arsenal game with me, there is a decent chance you have heard me repeat this refrain over and over again throughout the match.

One of the keys to soccer is the transition from defense to attack. Teams who are defending deep might get a key interception and have a chance to quickly progress up the field. These “counter-attacks” can be especially lethal as, instead of the usual 4-6+ defenders you would face against an opponent who is in formation, you find 2-4 defenders who are frantically back peddling and trying to get back into position. Counter-attacks can change the course of entire games and often give chances for underdogs to upset the competition, but the execution is of the utmost importance. There is a slim window with each counter-attack where you may find yourself out-manning the opposition, but if you dilly dally on the ball too long the other team will surely get back into position and negate any danger they may have previously faced.

So whenever Arsenal have a chance to counter-attack, I will likely be encouraging them to move quicker to take advantage of the situation before it passes them by.

I am pretty sure I got it from my Dad who is deathly allergic to players who slow-down play or have a habit of passing backward. Even some of Arsenal’s all-time great players like Henry and Sanchez have fallen out of favor with my father due to their proclivity to slow down our play.

Soccer is very much a game of momentum, but the unique beauty of the sport is how one single passage of decisive action can totally turn a game on its head.

I think life is a lot like soccer. It’s a momentum game. A game generally more of miles than milliseconds. But ever so often there is an opportunity that requires decisive action to capitalize on.

Back to School

I’ve been thinking about momentum recently as I have navigated the transition from the working world back to academia. As I discussed in my last post, the process was less than smooth. To top it off, we arrived in Philly the day after Hurricane Isaias swept through the area, flooding our building’s basement and knocking out our A/C. Unpacking in the Philadelphia summer was never going to be a life highlight, but doing so with no A/C turned it into a herculean effort. One which we lost badly. Once we were finally able to get our A/C back online we discovered that our movers had left us with a special going away present: COVID-19.

Suffice to say, our first couple of weeks in Philly didn’t exactly go according to the script. I had been so energized to hit the ground running and get the apartment straight ahead of school starting and instead I got absolutely stuffed on my way to the rim.

Life is like that sometimes. All the momentum in the world can come to a screeching halt due to something totally unforeseen or out of your control. It is impossible to avoid these speedbumps, so the real challenge lies in how quickly you are able to dust yourself off and get back up to speed.

It’s been slow going so far, but I am happy to report that I feel like I am starting to get my feet under me again. Caitlyn and I both feel 1000x better than we did at the beginning of the month and successfully navigated our isolation without exposing anyone else. Our apartment is (mostly) unpacked and school has gotten off to a great start. Normal classes start on Tuesday, but for the past two weeks, we have been engrossed in a business simulation course that was about as interesting and engaging as I could ever expect from a virtual course. The professor did a great job of leveraging the technology available to drive engagement like breaking us up into discussion rooms, utilizing real-time polls to gauge class sentiment, and encouraging us to share questions and comments in zoom chat. It is clear that the human element and opportunity for serendipitous conversations in the hallways are missing, but there are benefits to the remote classroom environment as well. As with many aspects of remote work, one is not inherently superior to the other for the majority of circumstances. It simply requires you to understand which trade-offs you are making and take action necessary to ameliorate downsides.

One of my biggest concerns headed into school was what the social scene would look like. The number one reason why I wanted to pursue my MBA was not the education itself or the credential but the network. And less the “network” as in alumni or professional network and much more the fact that people who are willing to take themselves out of the workforce and potentially spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investing into their career are the exact kind of risk-on, long-term thinkers I want to surround myself with.

Would people still be able to socialize? Would other students move to Philly? Would there be safe ways to engage with one another?

I am pleased to report that the social side of things has gone about as well as I could have hoped. There are way more social activities than I could ever participate in even if it was is all I did. People are taking the initiative to get creative and come up with safe and responsible ways to build relationships. Just as I expected they would. It’s not perfect. I think it can be especially hard for students who are not in Philly even with the regular occurrence of virtual events, but it is about as good as I had any right to be optimistic about a few weeks ago.

Momentum Games

So much about life is maintaining positive momentum and recapturing lost momentum when life inevitably trips you up. I feel like I have more or less been successful in doing that after the gut punches of the last couple of months, but I know that it will occur again.

There are few abilities that are as important as one’s ability to roll with the inevitable punches. To be able to intercept the ball when their back is to the goal and to counter-attack with speed.

This ability to execute at speed was by far the biggest indicator of success that I came to recognize after spending the last two years as a VC. The companies that were successful weren’t the ones with the best ideas or the most funding. They were the companies that were able to quickly try something, learn the key lessons, and to iterate. They ran experiment after experiment and eventually worked their way to the solution.

I have written about the power of these kinds of loops before, but I also think of Boyd Varty’s tracking metaphor for life. You often won’t know exactly where you are going, but if you pay attention to the broken twigs and footprints in the mud, you can eventually work your way to the solution.

I am trying to build up structures in my life to support maintaining my own positive momentum and quickly getting back on track when I fall short. Something that has been absolutely key to keeping me on track recently is developing a weekly review. I spend 30-60 minutes on Friday afternoon taking stock of my surroundings and planning for the week ahead. I was inspired by Diego Forte’s thinking on the subject, but customized it for my own needs.

Here’s my current checklist:

This structure has really helped me to pick my head up and evaluate whether I am spending my time the way I want to be. A few items of note: I wrote about my attempts to be more intentional about crafting my identity here. I am utilizing that sweet, sweet student discount to get Superhuman’s help with achieving the mythical inbox zero on a consistent basis (it 100% lives up to the hype. Leave me a comment if you want a referral!) I’ve written about my Personal CRM before and am more grateful than ever that I have built some good habits around being intentional about staying in touch with people as I drink from the social and academic firehose that is grad school (I went ahead and updated my public Personal CRM template if you’d like to give it a shot!)

I’ve also been trying to be more diligent in blocking time for activities in my schedule which has helped a lot. These strategies may seem like a lot and I wouldn’t recommend trying to add them all at once. Pick one or two things to work on and slowly build on top of that foundation as you pick up speed. Putting in structures like a weekly review checklist is the absolute best way to keep yourself from sliding too hard when your life gets flipp-turned upside down.

My system is by no means perfect. My next step is to build out monthly and quarterly check-ins for myself as well. I also know that I will likely need to continue to reassess my priorities and chop things that are not worth the time I am investing in them, but that is a discussion for another day.

Life is gonna hit you. And it is going to hit you hard. You won’t always be able to avoid those punches, but you can be proactive about crafting systems that help you bounce back into the ring afterward.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning (or the occasional Tuesday).

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Why does moving suck?

Two of my favorite activities I have done since the start of quarantine have been joining a book club and a Dungeons & Dragons group. I look forward to these activities for weeks at a time each month.

One of the recent books we read for the book club was Good Economics for Hard Times. As with most economic books, there were things I really agreed with and things I really didn’t. The authors’ points were all well argued and persuasive, but I couldn’t help coming away thinking that many of the inverse arguments could’ve been equally well argued by an opposing expert.

One of the contentions that I found most compelling was the authors’ critique of classic labor market theory.

Traditional labor market theory posits that labor flows between economic opportunities similar to any other supply and demand resource allocation. If there are no good jobs in your town, economists would traditionally believe that you would move away in search of better economic opportunity.

The authors, on the other hand, believe that labor markets are much stickier than what traditional economic theory may have you believe. They looked at real world examples and found that people who do leave their home for economic reasons do so slowly, reluctantly, and often with the intention of coming back in a short number of years.

The authors argued that people, by-in-large, want to continue living in the community they grew up in and will resist leaving if the only impetuous is a lack of job prospects. They looked at examples of mass migrations and found that the only consistent motivator was some sort of economic, geopolitical, or environmental disaster in a home country forcing people to move elsewhere.

I think they got this right on the money.

I believe that markets are relatively efficient at a macro level, but that pockets of inefficiency exist at more localized levels. Labor market stickiness definitely seems to be one of these areas. Maybe labor flows relatively well across the economy as a whole, but zooming in to individual communities often tells a different story.

So why don’t people move when all signs point to the fact that they should?

I believe I may have found out the answer.

BECAUSE MOVING SUCKS.

It is terrible.

I can’t imagine an activity that is done voluntarily and yet is such an overwhelmingly poor and universally maligned experience.

Think about it. What other activity in life do people just accept as being absolutely terrible? Tell someone you are moving and watch as their face immediately contorts as they remember the sheer agony of their last move which they had done such a good job of suppressing right up until you had the lack of decency to bring up the topic of relocating.

At least when you go to the dentist to get a root canal you get some free toothpaste or something. (My experience is that dentists are generally lovely people and I often find myself enjoying our conversations despite their admittedly one-sided natures).

Caitlyn and I moved to Philly almost two weeks ago and I am still struggling to recover.

It was, without a doubt, our worst. moving. experience. ever.

The company never communicated anything to us and we had to constantly be proactive about reaching out to them for updates.

Our movers were 7 hours late to pick up our things and because they were so late, they had to stop midway through and resume packing the next day. We ended up leaving Columbus a whole day and a half later than we expected.

When Caitlyn called the company to ask for a discount due to the tardiness of our movers and the delay to our schedule, the owner YELLED at her for being “unamerican” by “threatening a small business during a global pandemic”. Needless to say that didn’t go over super well with me.

The packers were PAINFULLY slow and took a full day to pack up our stuff when it probably should’ve taken 2-3 hours.

They were 4 hours late to drop off our stuff in Philly after we drove late into the night to arrive in time to get our keys for the drop off window they told us.

They were careless with our things dropping multiple packages and they were careless with our new apartment leaving multiple scratches and scuff marks on the wall.

Ok, rant over.

Needless to say, it was a terrible experience. And I was paying a pretty penny for the opportunity to experience it! As I was in the midst of our move I kept thinking to myself, “why is moving so bad?”

Why is it that such a universally terrible experience can be allowed to continue.

As with most things, I believe that answer lies in structure.

I am a big believer in structure-based theories of behavior.

The structure of an underlying system determines the incentives for its actors. The incentives determine the behavior that generally follows. People may deviate, but more often than not, they will follow the path of least resistance as defined by their environment.

My guess is that moving is much the same way.

Because it is a task that everyone does, but no one does regularly, the incentives are inclined towards a terrible experience for the people moving.

It’s a large market with low barriers to entry and need for local proximity. An absolute recipe for high levels of fragmentation. This fragmentation has created a business model where much of the industry is controlled by middleman dispatchers.

These are the lovely folks who somehow know to start incessantly calling you as soon as you even so much as think about typing “movers” into that Google search bar. They aren’t the ones loading and unloading the trucks. They sign you up and then they subcontract out the actual moving to local or regional van crews.

🚨🚨DING DING DING🚨🚨

Do you know what that sound is? That, my friends, is the sound of potential incentive misalignment.

Anytime you see the word “subcontract” your alarm bell should already be going off. These dispatchers secure your business by promising lower prices than competitors. Low barriers to entry in a highly fragmented and low-differentiation industry creates a race to the bottom to compete on price.

This can often be good for consumers, but because of the middlemen involved in moving, consumers don’t get the benefit of those decreased prices.

Because what do we know will happen without a doubt as part of every move? Hidden fees! Once movers have all of your valuables packaged up in their truck they will inevitably have some reason or another why they unfortunately need to up-charge you. How convenient they let you know that as soon as they have all the leverage?

What are you going to say?

“No, thank you sir. I will not be paying that charge, but please do be extra careful with my grandmother’s priceless porcelain.”

I think not.

So you have a terrible experience where you pay more for it than you were expecting. But why don’t bad movers go out of business?

Shouldn’t the fittest survive in the darwinian capitalist markets?

The answer is usually, but not always.

Bad movers stay in business for two reasons: a lack of transparency into the industry and a lack of repeat customers.

Movers don’t care about delivering an excellent moving experience because the chances are that you are unlikely to be a repeat customer even if they did (there is some exception to this with movers that are focused on more local moves, which, wouldn’t you know it are where it seems like the majority of positive moving experiences stem from). There isn’t really an incentive for them to do so since if you do move again, it will be years down the line, you won’t remember who your mover was last time or the particulars of the move itself (remember we all try to suppress these terrible experiences).

The industry also suffers from a significant lack of transparency. Our movers had over 4/5 stars on Angie’s List. Look how they turned out. Ratings are conflicting depending where you go and purposeful misdirection is common place (look at how many local and regional movers include “United” in their name to try to get you to associate them with United Van Lines, one of the largest moving companies in the country). The best way to ascertain the quality of movers are personal recommendations, but given the low frequency and the already-cited suppressed memories, the likelihood of someone having a positive experience along a similar move to what you are about to be making is minimal.

So there you have it. One of the great mysteries of modern economics solved. Why does moving suck? Structure.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning (or the occasional Tuesday).

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Good.

One of my new favorite life hacks is listening to motivational speeches set against the backdrop of electronic music while I workout. It feels like an absolute cheat code similar to listening to podcasts or audiobooks on a higher speed (I recently got up to 3.5x on Audible, an achievement I feel irrationally proud of as evidenced by my slipping it into this post where it is totally unnecessary.) Whereas before, I would need to choose between being pumped up/focused or turning on my brain, now I can do both. I can’t wait until the day someone builds a tool where I can “pump up” any audio file, but for now, I am making do with listening to the fantastic, Akira the Don (he’s got clout).

One of the people whose speeches I have been listening to is Jocko Willink. His no-holds-barred style and concept of radical ownership are exactly the tonic one needs when awake far too early and feeling unmotivated.

One of my favorite tracks of his is called Good.

In it, Jocko shares his preferred response for any challenge or unforeseen obstacle.

He simply responds “good”.

He has developed a mindset that looks for the opportunity in every challenge.

Don’t get the equipment you wanted for the mission? Good. Now you can focus on keeping it simple.

Don’t get the funding you wanted for your company? Good. Now you have more ownership.

Didn’t get the job you wanted? Good. Now you have more time to prepare.

I love this mindset. Looking for the good in every challenge or failure. Choosing to focus on the opportunity to learn and grow instead of dwelling on what went wrong.

As much as I love this mindset, it is definitely easier said than done.

This past week I have been trying (and often failing) to say “good” to a challenge in my own life. One of the great things about writing a weekly blog is that forcing your thoughts onto (digital) paper can be the world’s greatest form of therapy. Writing out my thoughts on this challenge has definitely helped me and I hope that it can help you to.

Remote Minus

A few weeks ago I wrote about how excited I was for the opportunity to get my MBA at Wharton. Getting my MBA is something I have always wanted to do and I have always wanted to get it from Wharton. Making a big transition is never easy, but I have been really pleased and optimistic about how Wharton was handling the global pandemic.

Until last week.

Last Thursday, Wharton announced that the fall MBA experience would be 100% online. I was pretty floored by the announcement. All summer long, administrators had excitedly been touting the benefits of their “remote plus” model. They promised that if you felt comfortable, there would be an avenue for you to interact with people in a safe, in-person setting. If you didn’t, there would be access to every class and community resource virtually.

I loved this approach and as recently as a month ago had bragged to others about how well Wharton had been handling everything. These are difficult times and I believe that the best approach is to let people opt-in or out of experiences based on their health, comfort level, and risk tolerance.

I was disappointed two weeks ago when the school announced the falls’ class list and we discovered that only 10% of classes would offer any sort of in-person component. Given the makeup of the first-semester schedule, I would be lucky if I could get into even 1 in-person class. But still, the school had said that they would be offering in-person classes, but they didn’t ever commit to an exact number or scope. It wasn’t ideal, but not wholly surprising either and, while disappointed, it was something I, and many other students, felt like we could live with given the context of the day.

Now, not two full weeks later, we received the news that the entirety of the fall experience would be virtual.

The worst thing isn't even the outcome.

With the current state of the world, I think we all knew that a virtual semester had the potential to be in the cards. What frustrates me is everything that led up to this outcome.

Consistent communication that in-person teaching would be happening from the beginning of summer to as recently as two weeks ago. I know this situation is always in flux, but I struggle to believe that the broad brushstrokes of the environment we find ourselves in have deteriorated that meaningfully in two weeks.

Poor communication of the decision itself. All morning we started hearing rumors popping up in various forums and group chats that Wharton was going to make the move to online classes. The official announcement came in an 8-minute speech by the new dean with the message that “School will be online in the fall. There will be no change in tuition costs. We won’t be taking any questions.”

Didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Now I know that classes moving online at an ivy league grad school is not exactly the sob story of the year, but a lot of people have made significant personal and financial commitments based on the information provided and it is a tough pill to swallow to have everything change two weeks before school starts. Many of us have been working on the MBA process for as long as a year. We quit jobs, took out significant amounts of debt, and made commitments to move to a new (and in my case much more expensive) city all based on the promise that there would be opportunities to connect in person.

I’ve always expected a rationalization in higher education, but I didn’t think that I would be the guinea pig. At this point, I feel committed to my decision to move to Philly and attend. We have bought our way out of our lease in Columbus and already paid significant deposits for a new apartment in Philadelphia. Our movers are picking up our stuff tonight (6.5 hours late. A story worthy of its own blog post 😑).

I feel committed.

But I don’t feel trapped.

Caitlyn and I knew that online school was a possibility and we agreed that we would move to Philly irrespective of what the modality of fall education looked like. So much of the value of an MBA is tied up in building relationships with others that we decided to trust that there would be a critical mass of other students in town no matter what and that we would all be motivated to connect in safe and responsible ways.

If we wanted to, we could still get out of our commitment. I can cancel my student loans without a penalty up until school starts. We could move to Philly and I could look for a new job or we could cancel our lease and lose our deposits.

It would hurt, but we could do it if we wanted to.

But we don’t. We are choosing to follow through with the experience.

We are saying “good”.

School is online? Good. It will give me more flexibility to pursue building my personal and professional network.

School is online? Good. I won’t be able to rely on any administrators to create events to help me meet other students. I won’t have any choice but to take the initiative myself.

School is online? Good. I can take all the skills I have learned about networking and relationship building and I can bring those to school as a leader in the community. This change provides me with an opportunity to leverage my expertise in a way that I might not have been able to before.

School is online? Good. I can see first hand what the future of the education system looks like. When you strip out the old brick building what is an ivy league school? It’s an expensive way to run an experiment, but I will be sure to find out and report back to you all.

School is online? Good. It will give me additional flexibility to pursue work or internship opportunities.

School is online? Good. I believe that much of my career will be spent working online. What a fantastic opportunity to develop best practices for this modality. If businesses are going to be mostly online in the future than experiencing school through that lense could be helpful. Whatever I do, I know that I want to be a leader and this experience will equip me with good habits and an understanding of the positives and negatives as I equip myself to lead companies that will, in all likelihood, have remote employees.

School is online? Good. It gives us an opportunity to visit family or travel with friends now that we won’t be bound to staying in Philly for the entirety of the semester.

School is online? Good. My ideal goal at grad school is to start my own company. Online school could give me the additional flexibility to do that.

They aren’t lowering tuition? Good. The bar for the value of online education just shot through the roof. The imperative is on Wharton to deliver the best damn virtual educational experience ever. I sincerely hope they succeed. It could serve as an example to other schools and businesses in this brave new world. And if they don’t or can’t, well, that will be indicative in its own right.

The school totally botched communication throughout the entire summer? Good. This experience is already bringing the new class closer together than we would’ve ever been otherwise.

This is a huge disappointment to me and it is not what I was hoping for or expecting? Good. Life’s that way too. I have lived an incredibly privileged and blessed life. Challenges are opportunities to learn and grow and I am sure this will be too.

I am really frustrated with how this all transpired? Good. Frustration is potential energy that I have the opportunity to channel towards positive-sum relationship building and learning.

I am anxious about all the ambiguity in the fall? Good. Another opportunity to continue to grow stronger in my lifelong battle against anxiety and self-doubt.

School isn’t handling this the way they should? Good. This has been a lesson on crisis management and leadership in and of itself.

Students have no leverage with the school? Good. This situation presents an opportunity to hone our skill of negotiating when your counterpart is the one with all of the leverage. Negotiating is easy when you hold all the cards. It is a lot harder when the other person does.

This is a major negative impact COVID is having on me? Good. I have been too insulated from this global pandemic for too long. Facing some hardship as an outcome of it will only broaden my perspective and provide me with additional empathy for those who have been impacted far, far more than me.

It’s disappointing how the school isn’t focused on coming up with creative solutions? Good. Gives us an opportunity to take the lead with a solution-focused mindset. We can be focused on coming up with creative solutions to these problems instead of just throwing our hands up in the air and calling it quits.

Why does an MBA have value?

Is it the education? The credential?

Most will say that it is the network you build. But going to a good grad school doesn’t automatically give you a fantastic network. Not really.

You still have to work for it. But more than that, the network upgrade isn’t intrinsic to the school itself. I believe that it is simply a function of the type of people who are willing and attracted to the idea of foregoing two years of income to invest in themselves and their careers. It attracts people who have a risk tolerance commensurate with that level of commitment and who believe they will achieve the kind of success over the long term to make any short-term sacrifice worthwhile.

I am hoping the current pandemic will be a similarly powerful forcing function.

The students who have the risk tolerance and drive to make the most out of this situation are likely the exact people I am going to want to build relationships with.

Transitions are never fun and they are never easy. It is not the ideal time to be making a life-altering transition. But it isn’t the ideal time to be doing much of anything.

Life goes on.

I am frustrated, disappointed, angry, anxious, sad, and hurt that this experience will be different than what I wanted when I started this process almost a year ago.

My MBA experience will be different than anyone expected. It will be the first year that we are operating in a global pandemic. It will be the first year that students are going to pay for an in-person experience and receive a virtual one. It will be the first year where networking events and recruiting will be held over zoom and not in person.

It isn’t want we wanted.

Good.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning (or the occasional Tuesday).

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

How to fail at everything and still succeed

Life has been taken over by preparations for our move to Philly. This has taken the form of trying to get together (safely) with friends before we leave, preparation for school, and packing. Lots and lots of packing.

It also has been a time of introspection. There’s a lot I don’t know about how my life is going to change in the next month, but one of the things I am fairly confident of is that I am about to be inundated with tantalizing opportunities to invest my time and efforts. As such, I have been thinking about what I want to make sure I focus on and prioritize once school starts.

As sometimes happens to me, this short-term question exploded into a long-term one. Not just where do I want to prioritize my time over the next 2 years, but what do I want to prioritize over the rest of my life? (This thinking lines up well with some of the thoughts I have been having on the Power of Identity.)

As I pondered this, the question struck me “What are the handful of things I could succeed at that would allow me to fail at everything else and still win?”

Put another way, how could I fail at everything else and still succeed?

I have spent the last couple of days thinking about this question and here are the endeavors I came up with.

A quick note before digging in. At times, this may wander near dangerously “preachy” sounding territory. At others, this may sound like banal self-help platitudes. Trust that the below is an earnest attempt at outlining what I believe to be answers to important questions. They are likely not the only answers and yours may differ compared to mine. I do not have this stuff all figured out. I am 26. I am happy with where I am at on some of these pursuits (I think I knocked #2 below absolutely out of the park), but others are still very much a work in progress. Remember this exercise started with thinking about where I wanted to prioritize my time. Hopefully, these rules can be a guidepost for you and me both.

Without further ado, the 5 things you can do to succeed, even if you fail at everything else:

Live Within Your Means

This is perhaps the phrase that has been hammered into my skull more completely than any other. It was a frequent favorite of my parents growing up and they still refer to it regularly. The idea here is to give yourself breathing room. Life happens. It takes all sorts of twists and turns. Your resiliency to low points could very well have just as much to do with your ability to follow this rule as any sort of personal amount of grit or drive. Living within your means is both downside protection and upside optimization. On the downside, it gives your breathing room and the ability to handle nasty surprises. On the upside, it gives you the flexibility to be able to take advantage of serendipity when it knocks on your door. I am a big believer in the idea that everyone gets lucky breaks in their life, but very few take advantage of them. Living within your means allows you to do just that.

Now I am not advocating a lifestyle of a modern hermit. You can definitely take this one too far and budget yourself into a pulp. Instead, think about what you care about and allocate money there. I am not a big car guy and likely never will be. But I love to travel and that’s something I would definitely like to do more of in the future. I care more about location in an apartment/house than appliances or square feet. You gotta decide for yourself what is or is not important. There are a million best practices for living within your means. Caitlyn and I use a tool called YNAB that really helps us keep on track with our budget through monthly check-ins.

By far the biggest thing you can do to live within your means is to select a home or apartment that is within your budget. The general recommendation is to spend about 30% of your gross monthly income on rent. I’ve always tried to get that number closer to 20% (not always succeeding). For most people, their rent/mortgage will be their biggest single monthly outlay and as such the easiest one to suddenly become an undue burden.

The last really important thing that living within your means can do is to help you safeguard your ethical well-being. Sound a little melodramatic? I don’t think it is. Otherwise good people do bad things when they find themselves backed into a corner. Giving yourself extra financial flexibility helps to minimize the chances of you ever compromising yourself because you feel like you have to. You always want to have “screw you” money. Enough money that you can tell your boss to take a hike if they ever pressure you into doing something unethical. You can question whether stealing an apple to feed your family is moral, but by far the better solution is to make the choices that mean that question is never necessary in the first place.

Marry Your Best Friend

Ever heard the phrase “you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with”? Well, whoever you chose to spend your life with will have more of an impact on who you are than the other 4 combined. The world is very skilled at making us believe every choice we make is the most important choice in the world. I’d argue that the only one that really rises to that incredibly high bar is who you choose to marry. This choice is the one with more leverage than any other. Choose correctly and you have a very high likelihood of life working out. Choose incorrectly and it will likely have unpleasant and longlasting ramifications. Now I can’t tell you what makes a healthy and happy couple. That is probably different for everyone.

But if I had to give one piece of advice it would be to marry your best friend. If you get this one thing right, everything else seems to kinda take care of itself. I’ve been married for 2 years, 9 months, and 5 days. I am not the world’s foremost expert on the subject of marriage. But I may be the world’s biggest advocate.

The past 2 years, 9 months, and 5 days have been the best of my life. There is nothing quite like having someone who you can trust so utterly and completely. Who has your back against the rest of the world. Who you don’t agree with on everything, but you agree with on the big things. Someone you can more easily picture growing old with than looking good on your honeymoon with. Someone who fills your life, not with happiness, but joy.

I got married young, but that doesn’t mean that it is for everyone. If it is for you, great! It definitely was for me and it has been awesome. If it isn’t, that is totally fine too. Just don’t fall into the trap of being afraid of commitment. I worry that my generation is more interested in freedom than it is in meaning. In my experience, meaning more often comes from responsibility than freedom. I worry that people chase freedom expecting that if they finally found it, their life’s meaning would somehow magically appear. You are much more likely to find that meaning once you commit yourself to something. Or someone.

Freedom < meaning. And meaning comes from responsibility. And boy is marriage one of the quickest ways to increase the amount of responsibility in your life. It isn’t always easy, but with the right partner on your team, it is worth it. It takes a lot of work, a lot of faith, and a lot of grace. But believe that a life shared is a life made whole.

Take Care Of Your Health

In every sense of the word. Physical, mental, spiritual, emotional. Your health is another great leverage function. If you are in bad health in any of the four aforementioned ways it will lead to negative impacts on your life. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but health is one of those things that has a nasty habit of eventually catching up to you (and often at the most inopportune times). This has been an increased area of focus for me recently. I’ve realized that my health is not just about me. It is about being at my best personally and professionally. It is about making sure that I will be there for my family. It is about having the energy to be present and engaged with my wife after work. And it is about reaching the potential I know that I have.

A few quick rules I have found effective.

Exercise regularly. Spend time outside. Eat everything in moderation except fruits and vegetables. Eat as much of that as you want. Avoid falling into the trap of thinking that every meal is a “special occasion” (I am a certified black belt in the mental karate necessary to talk myself into thinking that lunch on a random Tuesday is a culminating reward of my entire life’s work). When you are “on”, be “on” and when you are “off” be “off”. Spend >0 minutes every day investing in your spiritual wellbeing through prayer, reading your holy words, or meditation. Focus on the things you have control over and don’t stress out about the things you don’t. If you are unhappy about something, do something about it. Appreciate the good things you have in life and focus on acknowledging all that you are grateful for. Make sure you have one thing you are looking forward to every single day, no matter how big or how small.

Do Something Meaningful

It seems like you fall into one of two camps. Either the “Follow your passion” camp who believes that you are entitled to make a living doing whatever you enjoy most. Or the “work is work” camp that thinks if work was supposed to be rainbows and butterflies they would call it rainbows and butterflies. I’d like to offer an alternative narrative.

Do something meaningful.

This is different than following your passion. Doing something meaningful isn’t always fun. Often it isn’t. But I believe that is what makes it worthwhile. It is about doing something greater than yourself. Doing something that moves the world towards a higher state of being. Doing something that pushes back the darkness to expand the light. I believe that at our core, meaning is something that every single one of us yearns for. For an acknowledgment of how we fit into the world and that our existence matters. What you do can be an avenue to that, but only if it is something that is meaningful.

I believe the key to this is finding something where the process is its own reward. If you find something that you find meaningful, irrespective of any outcome like money or fame, you are probably on the right track.

In the words of the Knights Radiant, “Journey before destination.”

Avoid Blowing Up

Ok, so this one is a bit cheating. This isn’t something you actively do so much as it is an active practice of avoiding certain things. You avoid “blowing up” by avoiding doing things that could cause you financial, emotional, or physical ruin. Life is uncertain and disaster can strike at any time, but there are definitely activities that increase disaster’s chance of knocking on our doorstep.

An important aspect of this is maintaining proper perspective. A naturally long-lived life gives you plenty of opportunities to change and succeed. If you wanted to you could have multiple successful careers. Take the tract of optimizing for the long-term over the short. Avoid doing things that have a chance, even a tiny one, of absolute catastrophe. If 2020 has taught us anything it is that black swan events happen. Based on the regularity with which airlines get bailed out, it seems like they happen every decade or so in the financial markets.

To a certain degree, this advice is impossible to really follow since an aspect of almost every blow up is chance. But you can engage in activities that decrease those chances and avoid activities that increase them. Avoid metaphorical bungee jumps. Just doesn’t seem worth it for the risks. But then again I am not great with heights so maybe that is just my genetic makeup talking.

Alright. That’s what I got. These 5 rules are the strategies I believe will make me successful in life. I don’t think any of them are a secret, but as with most wisdom, the doing is harder than the hearing.

What have been the rules you’ve followed for success in life?

What are the things that you have done that allow you to fail at everything in life and still succeed?

Until next week.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning (and the occasional Tuesday after an especially busy weekend).

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Where the sidewalk ends

You may think I am a hypocrite.

And I can see why you might think that. On this very blog, I have criticized the idea of ”The Path”. The idea that our career should be charted out linearly moving from one step to the next. That there is a “right” way to get into a particular field and that you need to accomplish a certain amount of prerequisites before you are qualified to do something important with your life. I’ve argued that many of these ideas are holdovers from the way the world worked when our parents and their parents were coming of age. That the pieces of advice given to us by career counselors are relics of a time long past.

I’ve argued that the path is a lie in the modern world.

And all that time, I’ve been following one myself. And that is why I am excited to announce that I will be leaving my current job at Rev1 Ventures in the coming weeks to pursue my MBA at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

My Path

I’ve always wanted to get my MBA, and more than that, I’ve always wanted to get it from Wharton. I’ve got rational reasons why that is, but also some that are less calculating. You see, my dad also attended Wharton. And I got to see first hand what a massive positive impact it had on his career. He ended up starting the business that he has now run for over 20 years with another Wharton graduate. His buddies from school are successful entrepreneurs and executives at everything from startups to public companies. When my parents told stories about college, they didn’t tell stories about their undergraduate experience. They told stories about Wharton and the time they spent in Philadelphia. Growing up we would go on vacations with my parents’ grad school friends and their families. Some of my dad’s fellow alums have been key mentors to me in both life and my career.

I know that graduate school is a means to an end. A stepping stone towards bigger and better things. But if I am being honest with myself, getting my MBA at Wharton has always been a goal unto itself. I remember talking to my college counselor as a sophomore in high school and telling her that it didn’t really matter where I went to undergrad because I knew where I was going for graduate school. One of the reasons I first started looking at William & Mary was because it was a top 10 undergraduate school for sending students to top 10 graduate school programs. A niche statistic that I am sure very few spent as much time paying attention to as I did during my college search process.

Getting my MBA at Wharton is something I have worked towards for as long as I can remember. It has been something I thought about whenever I evaluated a job or took out time to plan career moves.

Wharton isn’t THE destination for me, but if I am being honest, it has always been A destination.

FAQ

Why are you getting your MBA?

First of all, because it is something I’ve always wanted to do for as long as I can remember. And when you get the opportunity to do something you’ve always wanted to do for as long as you can remember you should probably do that thing.

More than that I am going to Wharton for three main reasons:

To build my network

The number one reason I, and most people, get there MBA is for the network. In my career, I have always tried to optimize for learning. Putting myself in a position where I could learn as much as possible. As a colleague once told me, you need to spend time in the “learn” part of your career before you can start spending time in the “earn” part of your career. I believe optimizing for learning is absolutely critical, but one of the things I didn’t properly take into account is how much learning comes from simply working next to smart, ambitious people. I’ve been able to see how much of a difference this has made in my wife’s career working at a AAA high growth startup and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t something that I was hoping to get out of grad school. There aren’t many places where you can find such a high concentration of smart, ambitious people as at a top MBA program. Now I have worked with some fantastic people in my career so far, but I haven’t pushed myself out of my comfort zone the way I believe I am about to and I could not be more excited to see what comes out of it.

To learn as much as I absolutely can

I love the academic environment. I love learning and being in class and doing homework and just being surrounded by others pursuing knowledge. It is something that I also didn’t fully appreciate until after I had graduated from college. I cannot wait to be back in the academic setting and to just devour as much information as I possibly can.

To build my (internal & external) resume

Credentialing matters. Maybe not as much as it used to, but it still does. I fully expect that Wharton will open doors for me that I might not be able to open otherwise. It’s a part of what justifies the cost of the experience. But more than just a golden stamp on the resume, the credential matters to me. It’s kinda hard for me to put into words but getting into (and hopefully excelling) at a school like Wharton proves something to me. Maybe it’s that I belong in the room with the smartest of the smart. Maybe it’s that I have learned how to play and win at the game we call life. Whatever it is, I know that Wharton will be an incredible opportunity for internal growth. Internal strength and confidence is the credential I am most excited to build over the next two years.

Is an MBA necessary for the things you want to pursue?

Not really. There are less and less career paths where an MBA is required. In the tech/startup world, it is even less common. About 50% of VCs have an MBA. If I was absolutely certain of a particular career path, it may make more sense to solely optimize around getting into that career. But an MBA is a fantastic opportunity to explore different industries and figure out what might be the best fit for me. It is also something that, while likely not a prerequisite to anything I want to do, will definitely be an asset to whatever I want to do. I am willing to bet that increasing my education, network, and confidence is going to be something that will have huge dividends no matter what I end up doing.

How is school going to work in a post-COVID world?

A good question that I have found myself asking frequently over the last few months. Every school is taking a bit of a different approach around what the fall could look like and it has been evolving in real-time. I am really pleased with how Penn has handled the less-than-ideal cards they have been dealt. Penn is moving forward with plans to have a hybrid model in the fall that will incorporate both virtual and in-person learning. There will be opportunities for those who feel comfortable to opt-in to in-person education, but every class will be available online for any who do not. The school is requiring students to abide by a bunch of common-sense precautionary measures including limiting gatherings to less than 25 people, wearing a face mask while on campus, limiting non-essential travel, getting tested before starting class, and checking into a contact tracing app every day to state if we are experiencing any symptoms.

It’s definitely not the ideal situation for a major life transition, but you could say the same thing about everything these days. Who knows how long this global pandemic will continue or what the permanent impacts will be. Right now feels like the right time for me to go to school so that’s what I am doing. And I am provided solace by the fact that I will be attending with a bunch of super-smart, highly motivated people who will all be focused on coming up with creative solutions to get to know each other.

Is an MBA still worth it?

The short answer is “Yes.” A longer answer is “Hell Yes.” A longer answer that actually includes some nuance is “It probably depends where you are getting it from.” I definitely believe that both primary and higher education could do with a rationalization. Too many people are taking on too much debt and not getting nearly enough value. But I believe there are schools where that isn’t the case. Wharton is one of them. As mentioned above, being in a partially online environment isn’t 100% ideal but nothing is these days. I am confident that any hindrances to the experience will be equally offset by the “trial by fire” that we will all be going through and that this shared hardship will bring us even closer together.

What will happen to the blog?

First of all, thank you for your concern for the blog. I am well and truly touched 😭😭😭. In the short term, the answer is “not much.” This blog is the way it is because it is the format that I have found most sustainable for writing regularly over the past 2+ years. With so much else changing in my life, I am hesitant to try to change the blog too much in addition. I am going to try to continue with weekly posts and see how that goes. This blog is a reflection of the things going on in my life, the things that interest me, and the things I care about. As such, I wouldn’t be surprised if I share some of my experiences from school. Hopefully, that is as interesting to you as my ramblings on how Arsenal’s left-back situation relates to startups in Kentucky or whatever else I usually cook up.

What’s Next?

The million-dollar question. The number one question I have been asked when I tell people about my impending transition is what I will do on the other side. The truth is that I don’t know. This is where the sidewalk ends. I’ve meticulously planned up to this point and no further. And that excites me every bit as much as it scares me. The north star I’ve oriented myself around throughout my career has been my desire to build great companies that make a meaningful impact by solving important problems. Whatever I end up doing will have to satisfy that in some way, shape, or form but, luckily, that gives me a lot of real estate to work with. I expect that I will continue to be involved in some aspect of the world of technology/startups/entrepreneurship/venture capital even if I am not exactly sure where. I am hoping to use the MBA experience to get some exposure to the operating side of the startup world. Maybe I will love it. Maybe I will hate it. But I don’t know what I don’t know and even if it doesn’t work out I think it will only make me a better investor having tried operating.

Last week, I spoke about the positive power of identity. Core to my professional identity is two things: I believe I was born to be a builder and a leader. There are a lot of ways to satisfy these core attributes, but those are the two lenses I will be looking towards as I evaluate potential opportunities going forward.

I started this post pointing out the inconsistency between my stated lack of belief in a path and the actions I have taken to follow one. But I don’t believe my following a path and not believing in the idea of “The Path” amounts to some sort of cognitive dissonance. Yes, I’ve always had a path that I’ve followed. But that path only went so far. I could not be more excited about the experiences and relationships that the next two years will bring.

But I am just as excited for what comes after.

For life without the Path.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Marathons, Motivation, and the Positive Power of Identity

Lately, I have been thinking about the concept of identity.

Identity is an extremely powerful force. For good and ill. Things we associate with our identity are the things that we hold most core to who we are. Recently, it seems like most of the discussion around identity has been negativing. It is looked at as a source for partisanship and tribalism.

But we shouldn’t underestimate identity potential as a force for good either.

Britney Runs a Marathon

I watched Britney Runs a Marathon a few days ago. The movie is a true story about a woman trying to get their life together and using the New York City Marathon as their motivating goal. After many ups and downs along the way, Brittney achieves her goal (I feel comfortable sharing this spoiler since it is literally the title of the movie). Watching the movie it struck me that the key to her success was how she changed her identity. At the beginning of the movie, she accepted being overweight as simply “who she was”. She was never going to achieve anything and would just coast through life because she was a lazy screw-up.

After being faced with some hard truths she decided to take action by starting to run. This was the keystone habit that helped her get other aspects of her life in order like getting a new job, investing in healthy friendships, and being open to positive romantic relationships. It all revolved around her habit of running. I love that the movie didn’t glamorize her taking the initial step to get going. She didn’t listen to pump up music or watch a motivational youtube video before she got started. She didn’t buy herself brand new workout clothes or running shoes agreeing that she would get started once she looked the part.

She took action.

She put on a ratty sweater and was able to run just 1 block.

But she stuck with it. She put one foot in front of the other and eventually she started seeing progress.

The movie perfectly mirrors Jeff Haden’s framework for motivation (great explainer video).

Motivation is not a spark that ignites the fires of your genius. It is the outcome of taking action.

As Brittney started to make progress her identity changed. She wasn’t someone who went out all the time and got wasted. She was someone who ate healthily and exercised. This was her new self-identity and it was what gave her the motivation to keep going.

My Marathon

This movie really resonates with me and some of my personal journey.

I have always struggled with my weight. Psychologically as much as physically.

I’ve been some level of short and stout for the entirety of my teenage and adult life. I played sports and exercised growing up, but I was always on the heavier side of things. Sometimes in a healthy way, but often in a very unhealthy way. There have been stretches where I made really good progress on my weight/health, but I never really built long-term sustainable habits and so I would inevitably back slide.

This time is different though.

The Last Year

Instead of going 0 to 100 on some unsustainable diet or workout plan, I have slowly been building up healthy habit on top of healthy habit over the past year. I have been focused on sustainable lifestyle change and falling in love with the process of being healthy instead of being overly focused on the goals/outcomes I am working towards.

And most of all I have been consciously working on changing how I think of myself.

How I view my identity.

It started last year at a summer reunion with my college buddies. We rented out a lake house for a long weekend where the usual debauchery, hilarity, and fun times ensued. One of the big surprises for the trip was seeing a friend I hadn’t seen in years who had gotten in really good shape and lost a bunch of weight. He looked great and I found myself thinking “if he can do it why can’t I?’

The first thing I started doing when I got back was trying to establish a good workout routine (I wrote about it last labor day). Instead of trying to do something that didn’t come naturally and that I didn’t enjoy (running) I refocused my efforts on doing something that I did enjoy more (weight lifting). (Side note: Since quarantine struck I have since started running more and even started to enjoy it. A bit). Over time, I was able to get in a really great workout habit where I now work out every day before work. Just like Brittney, motivation came from action and not the other way around. I used an app called Fitbod as an AI Personal Trainer. This allowed me to track my progress on all of my weights. The more I worked out, the more progress I would see, and the more I was motivated to continue working out.

Over the course of six months, I built a really solid workout habit but I wasn’t losing any weight. I was building muscle, but I was still eating as terribly as ever. Around the holidays I decided to make a change and started trying to eat healthier. I didn’t want to do a diet that wouldn’t work. I just wanted to focus on eating simple meals with lots of greens and minimal carbs/processed food.

Instead of just hoping that it would work I put some structure around it to measure my progress.

I started weighing myself every day (This scale makes it a breeze to track). Once a week I would also measure my waist, stomach, chest, and arms so I could track my progress in those areas as well. This really paid off because of how weird any progress journey is.

On the weeks where I had plateaued a bit on my weight, I was often able to see progress on my measurements and visa versa.

Weighing myself also had the benefit of shortening the feedback loop on my eating. The hard part about eating healthy is that eating something bad for you feels good immediately and you only see the negative results over time. The inverse is true for healthy eating.

By weighing myself every day I had a much quicker feedback loop. If I ate like crap, I would see it on the scale and I could make sure to eat better the next day.

This ability to recalibrate and adjust daily had a hugely beneficial impact. Without going on a diet or changing my exercise routine I was able to lose 15 lbs over the course of 3 months. Just by weighing myself every morning.

At this point, I started to plateau a bit more. In an effort to jumpstart my progress again I started using an app called Noom. Since starting that app I have lost another 15ish lbs and am really feeling good about my progress again.

Noom has helped me in a few ways.

1. It gives me skin in the game. Noom isn’t free. It costs something like $30 a month. This act of paying for it has really helped me commit to using it. If I don’t I feel like I am wasting money.

2. The app is focused on the psychology of building healthy sustainable habits. It is not a dieting app. No foods are off-limits. It is about building self-awareness to understand why you act in certain ways and to shine a light on the thought distortions we have. Things like telling ourselves that we will never be in good shape. Or throwing up our arms and saying what is the point if we have one stumble eating something we shouldn't.

3. Most importantly the app has made tracking my food easy. This has been something I have tried before but have never been able to stick with. Noom makes it super easy to use and it really helps me to be accountable for what I am eating. It helps me be aware of what is healthy and what isn’t (when you start tracking your food you quickly learn how many foods that are marketed as being healthy are actually anything but!). So far I have been tracking my food after the fact, but I am working on trying to track my food before I eat a single bite to increase my awareness of what I am about to put into my body (instead of learning about it after the fact).

The Power of Identity

I know this has been a bit of a long-and-winding-road of a post. Talking about my weight is pretty personal and I wanted to provide a window into the journey. So how does this bring us back to identity?

I am feeling really good about the progress I have made so far, but I know that I have a long way to go. I want to keep building on the healthy habits that I have nurtured and continue to design a sustainable and healthy lifestyle for myself.

I think the biggest part of this going forward will be changing aspects of my self-identity. Just like Brittney, I used to think that I would never be in good shape. That I was lazy and that my body was something out of my control. Now I am healthier than I have been in almost a decade. And let me tell you, I am loving stomping around in my old arsenal jerseys that I haven’t fit into since freshman year of college.

In addition to relying on the Action -> Progress -> Motivation loop to help solidify identity change, I have written out some affirmations of how I view myself. Some of these are aspects of my identity that have always been there. Others are new. Others are a bit more aspirational and things that I am actively working towards.

Here they are.

My chosen identity:

• I am a life-long learner

• I eat healthily and enjoy eating simple meals

• I exercise regularly. I love being active and I am at my best only after I have exercised

• I love being outdoors and doing fun things outside

• I have value not because of what I do or achieve but because of who I am. I am a child of God created in his image and as such my value is infinite. Just like everyone else's.

• I enjoy being spontaneous and trying new things

• I prioritize my family over my career

• I am process-oriented and focused on internalizing my goals by trying my best and surrendering the outcomes

• I am slow to anger and don't let things get to me. I take life as it comes and don't sweat things that are out of my control

• I am a writer and enjoy honing my craft by writing weekly through my blog

• I am a bridge builder and I seek to find commonalities instead of differences

• I am encouraging and empathetic towards others

• I am humble and low-ego. I am as at home talking to a janitor or a CEO

• I am confident and willing to fight for what I believe is right

• I am a master of staying in touch with people and I am happy to go the extra mile to maintain a relationship that is important to me

• I go first. I introduce myself first and invite people first. I am open and I break down awkwardness and barriers.

• I work hard and productively on things I care about

• I happily do nice things for Caitlyn and help her out around the house as a way of showing her how much I care

• I act ethically in all things I do. I don't take shortcuts and I don't compromise on my morals

Our identity has so much power.

It has the power to propel us forward and the power to hold us back. The power to divide us and the power to bring us together. What is often missed in discussions about identity is that our identity is malleable. For most of us, it is the outcome of our life’s circumstances.

But it doesn’t have to be.

As with most things in life, at the heart of our identity lies a choice.

So what identity will you choose for yourself?

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Just keep driving

When I was growing up I had a lot of anxiety. I have written about my experience with it before.

Outside of social settings, the area where my anxiety cropped up the most was driving. During the first couple of years having my license I was perpetually worried about making a wrong turn and getting lost. This was especially anxiety inducing whenever I was driving in a new place or had to make an adjustment with minimal notice.

I distinctly remember driving with my dad during one of these times and him telling me something along the lines of “If you make a wrong turn, just keep driving. Eventually we will get where we need to be.”

Learning to adopt this mindset really helped me manage my anxiety levels while driving. If I missed a turn, I would know it wasn’t the end of the world and that I would eventually find my way back to where I needed to be. After successfully finding my way when I had thought I was lost a couple of times, I no longer feared that happening. I had faced my fear and it turned out it wasn’t so bad.

Life is a lot like that.

We spend so much time worrying about missing a turn when the downside scenario of actually doing so really isn’t all that bad. If we just keep driving we will find our way back on track. Ironically, the act of worrying about missing a turn likely increases the chances of it happening significantly.

I am going through a period of transition (more to come on this soon) and I have found myself getting stressed about all the different balls that I feel like I am juggling. I’ve been getting anxious looking at everything I need to do instead of just coming up with a plan and starting to knock things out one by one. This has been especially true when I am in uncharted territory or if I need to make a split second adjustment. Just like driving.

And just like driving, the fear of something is much greater than the act of doing it itself.

Problems seem big and scary when they are nebulously swirling around our head. The second I get all my To-Do’s on paper (Notion) and start knocking things out I immediately feel much better. Despite knowing this, it is easy to fall into bad habits and let things build up.

It’s easy to worry about what could go wrong instead of acknowledging that the worst-case scenario probably isn’t that bad.

It’s easy to be so focused on the destination that we forget about the joys of the journey along the way.

What isn’t easy is to turn off fear and worry. Only action really can do that.

When you do make a wrong turn, don’t sweat it. Come up with a plan.

And just keep driving.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Leviathan

I learned to write from Thomas Hobbes.

During my freshman year of college, I unwittingly signed up for one of the most important classes I would take during my four years at school. Introduction to Political Theory. As a prospective public policy major, I thought this would be a good initial baby step into my major. Training wheels if you will.

Boy, was I wrong.

The professor was short and ripped. He was bald and had a massive bright red beard. He was a Buddhist who had spent his early career as a highway patrolman for the Louisiana State Police. That was up until he woke up one day and decided to become one of the world’s foremost experts on Hobbesian political theory. He was so well versed in the subject that he didn’t require essays in his class to be submitted through any sort of plagiarism checker. He was confident if a paper existed on any of the theorists discussed in his class that, not only would he have read it previously, but that he would be able to recognize it an ill-intentioned student’s submission.

I was so intimidated I dropped the class.

Luckily by my second semester, I was able to work up the confidence to sign up again. I am so glad I did as the class turned out to be one of the most influential academic courses I have taken in my life. Not only did the political theories examined leave an impression on me, but the very way that I wrote was transformed. How could it not be? I was spending countless hours examining the masterpieces of some of the most thoughtful orators and philosophers the world has ever known.

The writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke left an especially indelible mark.

Hobbes was a 16th-century English philosopher whose political theories laid the foundations for much of the modern state. Hobbes believed that without a form of central authority, man would revert to his basest instincts. In this state of nature, anyone would take whatever they wanted if they had the force to do so. This would lead to a “war of all against all” where there would be no room for arts, science, culture, or enterprise. Left to our own devices, Hobbes contends that life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Hobbes’ solution to this bleak proposition is for people to join together in a social contract that would provide for the good of all. Individuals would cede some of their rights to a central authority that would have ultimate power to enforce the social contract and remediate breaches thereof. He called this central authority “Leviathan.”

Leviathan would simultaneously be strong enough to maintain unquestionable authority and also be beholden to the governed. Hobbes believed that every member of the social contract would be entitled to equal rights and protections and because they themselves created Leviathan, only they could change it.

Hobbes’ theory of the state of nature and the need to form Leviathan was built upon by another English Philosopher named John Locke. Locke believed that a government’s obligation was to protect the “Life, Liberty, and Property” of its constituents. In Locke’s eyes, humans were born equal and free and that governments, therefore, only ruled by the consent of the governed.

Locke’s philosophy was the bedrock upon which a group of revolutionaries designed the United States of America. Like Hobbes, our founding fathers believed in a strong central government formed by, and beholden to, the very people that it governed. This government would be created to protect people’s life, liberty, and ability to pursue happiness.

Much has changed in the last 250 years, but I believe that the foundational beliefs that underpinned the creation of our nation remain as true today as they did then.

I believe that people have a right to live however they see fit up until the point where their freedom starts infringing on others. That’s where Leviathan gets involved.

The military and police are projections of Leviathan’s power. They enforce the social contracts that we have all joined together to be a part of.

As with Leviathan itself, they only have power because we give it to them.

Unfortunately, institutions are just as prone to principal-agent problems as people are. We may imbue them with the power to act on our behalf, but over time there will always be a temptation to act in their own self-interest. Many institutions forget that they exist to serve us and instead believe that their purpose is to expand and protect their own purview.

Law enforcement are a critical piece of infrastructure. Just like schools or libraries or roads. And just like all of those other institutions, they should be beholden to the people they have sworn to protect and serve.

They exist for us. We do not exist for them. If they are not working how we want them to, then change is not only appropriate but required.

I believe calls to defund law enforcement are just as short-sighted as they would be if they were calling to defund schools, or libraries, or roads (and a prime example of the unnecessary division of charged language). But it is clear that meaningful reform is needed for an institution that people no longer believe serves their best interest. The good news is that many of the most effective reforms are not nearly as drastic as you may expect (Side Note: It is shocking how few municipalities have common-sense requirements for their officers. Only 42 of the largest 100 police departments in the country require the use of deadly force to only be used as a last resort!)

Others have written on the issues and potential solutions for the current system much more effectively than I could ever hope to (I think my friend Kris did an especially exceptional job).

My hope with this post is to simply point out that demanding reform and questioning our institutions is not “un-American”. In fact, nothing could be more American. Calls for reform are based on beliefs that are foundational to the creation of our republic.

Beliefs that institutions should work for us, not against us. That we are created equal and that every member of our society should be treated fairly.

That the power of institutions is not inherent and that it only exists as long as we deem it so.

We agree and Leviathan enforces our agreement. That’s how it works.

Yes, Leviathan is all-powerful. It needs to be in order to protect those who have no power.

But we must not forget that Leviathan works for us, not the other way around.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

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If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

People are People

This blog doesn’t really have a “theme”.

I know I would probably have more readers if I did. If all I wrote about was venture capital or technology or something even more niche. Instead, I treat this as more of a personal blog. I write about whatever I want to, whenever I want to. A few topics like tech, entrepreneurship, soccer, and philosophy come up a lot because those are the sort of things I spend a lot of time thinking about.

This blog is a reflection of who I am and how I see the world.

If there is one message that permeates this blog, I hope that it is one of optimism. The idea that tomorrow will be better than yesterday is one of the cornerstone pillars of my psyche. It’s a fundamental part of who I am and I hope that it shows through in my writing. Apart from the occasional rant, I try to maintain a positive attitude and focus on controlling the things I have power over and not stressing out about the things I don’t. I try to keep an even keel and maintain a sense of moderation and centricity. Things are rarely black or white. Narratives are rarely as simplistic as storytellers would have you believe. My natural instinct is to look for common ground even among the most fierce of ideological opponents.

I try to face everything with a sense of humor and genuine optimism.

That has been hard recently.

It’s hard to maintain optimism when the world feels like it’s on fire. When it feels like our country is tearing itself apart.

This video helped me and I wanted to share it with you. Maybe it will help you too.

It’s an important message and one that aligns with the bridge-building ethos of this blog.

People are people.

Police aren’t pigs. Protesters aren’t wild animals.

People are people. They have families. They have dreams and ambitions. They have hopes and fears. They are capable of hate. And they are capable of love.

People are people. People are idiots. And people are geniuses. Often simultaneously.

People are people. To treat them as anything less than that dehumanizes you even more than it dehumanizes them.

Democrats are people. Republicans are people. Anti-Fascists are people. Fascists are people.

I am not some moral-relativist imploring you to respect everyone’s journey or telling you to follow your truth. I believe that there is good and evil in this world. Just as I believe that there is good and evil within all of us. Because we are people.

What unites us isn’t the fact that we agree. It’s the fact that we don’t.

Humanity is not at its best in times of peace but in times of upheaval. When we are rolling in the mud kicking, screaming, and slinging punches. Fighting bitterly but slowly (oftentimes so slowly it is imperceptible) moving towards a better world.

So fight for what you believe. Stand up and be counted. Argue vehemently for your causes just as you know your opponents will.

But never forget that your opponents are people.

That is the only way that we lose.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Rats with better PR: Fundamental Attribution Errors and Narrative Directionalism in a Fact-Malleable World

Squirrels are just rats with better PR.

One of my friends from college once said this to me. William & Mary’s campus is heavily wooded and as such, squirrels were an extremely common sight while we walked on cobbled brick from place to place.

The reason this snarky throwaway comment has stuck with me over the years is because it underlines a fundamental truth of the human condition: We see the world through narratives. And those narratives are not defined by truth so much as by the collection of facts that we choose to focus on.

Are squirrels cute tree-planters or disease-ridden monsters? It depends on the facts you choose. If we focus on their fluffy tails, cute white bellies, and the fact that as many as half of the acorns they hide could one day grow into trees, squirrels seem like man’s best friend. If we focus on the fact that squirrels can carry diseases like the plague and tularemia, have taken down more power lines than hackers, can run faster than humans, jump 5 feet into the air, and are very strong swimmers, squirrels seem like some sort of evil super-monster designed by a mad scientist in a lab.

It all comes down to the facts that we choose to focus on. If you are a storyteller, you have a lot of power to shape your narrative. You can build two narratives that are diametrically opposed to one another simply by the facts that you choose to include or omit. Everyone has their own set of preconceived notions and biases and anyone who tells a story will inevitably be tempted to cherry-pick the facts that suit their existing expectations. This “narrative directionalism” means that whenever we hear a story, we need to pay special attention to the incentive structures and base assumptions impacting the facts that the storyteller will choose to include or not.

We are seeing a constant barrage of examples of narrative directionalism every day as people cover and discuss the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. You can construct a fact-based, top-down narrative about the dangers of this pandemic, the need to grant our institutions exceptional powers, and reasons why we should continue living under strict quarantine. You can also construct a fact-based, top-down narrative about how the dangers are overblown, our institutions are failing (or even abusing) what power they do have, and how the loss of life and liberty from staying in lockdown far outweighs potential dangers of reopening.

How can these two narratives exist simultaneously? Is one wrong and the other right? What is true?

I do not believe we live in a post-truth society. I believe we live in a fact-malleable society. Truth is not subjective. But facts are.

The phrase “the sky is blue” is true. “The sky is not red” is a fact, but it does not necessarily lead to the conclusion of what is true. “The sky is a color that is not red, green, yellow, orange, or purple” is a selection of facts that tells a different story that much more closely aligns with truth.

Modern storytellers wield incredible power to define narratives based on the facts that they select. If we examine their incentive structures, members of the media are, consciously or unconsciously, incentivized to promote sensationalist narratives. In an advertising-based model, maximizing reader throughput is the chief goal. Brand and reputation matter yes, but not nearly as much as grabbing eyeballs. For a story to be told the fact pattern must lead one to the conclusion that things are either EXTREMELY good or EXTREMELY bad. It’s not news otherwise. This is not a new phenomenon. Look at the storytellers of old and you will see the same sensationalist tendencies.

The truth of course almost always lies in the middle. Things are neither as good as some would have you believe nor as dire. Peel back the incentive-informed narrative directionalism and you will often find that truth lies along a middle ground. This isn’t a surprise. Lay out a complete fact pattern in neutral language and people have a remarkable capacity to find the truth. Use charged, sensationalist language and tribalist battle lines will inevitably be drawn. How are storytellers able to so consistently guide others to the conclusions they want to be drawn?

There is one tool that they use more than any other to sway masses. Fundamental Attribution Error.

Fundamental attribution error is peoples’ tendency to overemphasize someone’s personal characteristics and personality traits as a primary driver behind their actions while simultaneously under-emphasizing environmental factors. When we eat a cookie while trying to be healthy we chalk that up to our being weak-willed instead of asking why we left cookies on the counter in the first place.

Sensationalism-incentivized storytellers know this and take advantage of it. Human beings understand the world through people-centric narratives. We view events through the lens of individual actors and their personalities. Heroes and villains. Bad guys and good guys. Republicans and Democrats.

In our estimations for why something occurred, we regularly underestimate structural, environmental, and systemic factors. We blame bad actors without asking ourselves what systems empowered, shaped, and motivated them. It’s as natural as it is unfortunate.

My challenge for you is to rise above that natural instinct. Think about who is setting the agenda and the narrative directionalism they are incentivized to pursue.

Critically examine each storyteller’s incentive structure (even mine) before you make assumptions about their credibility.

Understand that reality is a complex adaptive system and steer clear from placing excessive causality on an individual’s shoulders.

Find a middle ground and treat people with the respect that they deserve, irrespective of their political affiliation or personal characteristics.

“I’m very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. In noise than silence.” - Mr. Rodgers

Until next time.

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If you have thoughts on this post leave a comment below or reach out to me on twitter @abergseyeview where my DMs will forever be open.

If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe here to receive all of my posts delivered directly to your inbox every Monday morning.

If this is the first time you are reading something I wrote and you want to learn more about me, this is a good place to start. It includes some background on me as well as a collection of my top posts.

Now What?

Well. It feels like the world is slowly starting to spin again.

Next week will see restaurants open outdoor seating here in Ohio. Indoor seating will follow a week after.

Maybe it’s the eternal optimist in me, but it feels like a positive outlook has some momentum behind it. Like things are getting a little bit better each day versus the inverse from a couple of months ago.

Do I think we are out of the woods yet? No. I’m nervous about opening up too quickly and risking further spread. But I am also nervous about opening up too slowly and risking further economic meltdown. The people most worried about a “second wave” of infections are the same people that expected upwards of half a million deaths in the US from the pandemic. I hope they are as wrong about the former as they were the latter.

Will things get worse before they get better? Will we see a second wave? And a third? What if treatment and vaccines don’t come as quickly as we hope?

Or is the medicine really worse than the disease? Have the actions of our government been designed to save face versus save lives? Was flipping the off switch on our economy really necessary? What will the second and third order effects of this economic slowdown be?

As with most things in life, I expect the truth is somewhere in the middle. This pandemic likely isn’t as bad as one side would have you believe while simultaneously being much more serious than the other argues.

I both believe and hope the trajectory towards normalcy will continue. I expect there to be bumps in the road and further scares in the coming months and years, but I do expect that we will defeat this pandemic.

What I don’t believe is that things will ever completely go back to normal.

In the words of Praxidike Meng, “Biological Equilibria? They’re not straightforward. Never.”

We may approach “normalcy” but we will never reach it. Because true “normalcy” never existed and it never will. The world is a massively complex and ever-evolving system. This pandemic will cause permanent changes.

But will those changes be positive or negative? Will the lessons from the current crisis help us avert the next one? Or will we stick our heads in the sand and say this was a “once in a lifetime event” (which, according to the airlines industry seems to happen about once a decade)?

I believe that the threat of widespread epidemics will continue to be one of the greatest struggles that we face as a human race. We won’t be getting less interconnected anytime soon. Global commerce will continue to be just that, global. The population will continue to increase and urban centers will continue to grow in size and density. As terrible as the Coronavirus has been, it is scary to think that it could have been worse. COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted the elderly and those with complicating health factors. Children and healthy adults have, by-and-large, little to fear from the pandemic itself. But that is not how all diseases work. For a typical epidemic, diseases generally follow a U-shape age curve, causing severe damage to both the elderly and the young. Imagine the damage that the current pandemic could have done if it had followed usual disease age-curves…

I hope that we can learn from the collective mistakes we made when facing the COVID-19 pandemic and that we take the actions necessary to be much better prepared to face the next one. We can create a strategic stockpile of medical and protective equipment to make sure we are not at the mercy of international supply lines. We can rethink how we structure our physical spaces to ensure for appropriate space per person. We can develop common-sense precautionary measures to keep businesses open and operating even during future epidemics. We can ensure that schools and businesses are equipped with the technology they need to transition to remote operations if necessary. We can remove stigmas around staying home from work and school when you aren’t feeling well. We can enact more flexible work schedules that allow people to work on schedules that are best for them. We can increase security measures and make temperature checks common place at airports and offices. We can develop a playbook for how to deal with environments that are especially susceptible to quickly spread the disease like nursing homes and prisons.

We can learn from this and be better prepared for future pandemics.

We can beat them just like we will beat this current pandemic.

We can do all these things.

But will we?

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Why I Game

I am a gamer.

Always have been, and in some way, shape or form probably always will be. Some of my fondest memories have been playing video games with friends and I continue to regularly play video games to this day. Gaming has always meant a lot to me, but that meaning has evolved over the years.

When I was young gaming was a refuge I turned to. Growing up I really struggled with social anxiety. Playing video games offered me a healthy escape from that anxiety. It was an outlet that allowed me to be social in a medium that was more comfortable for me. Gaming was never anti-social for me, quite the opposite in fact. All of my favorite gaming memories involved playing with other people. My best friend and I playing Morrowind for hours at a time on two separate TVs set up next to each other in my basement. All-night Halo LAN parties for my birthday every year. My brothers, friend, and I staying up all night to beat Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The first time my brother and I beat the final boss of the Dragon Soul raid in World of Warcraft. Gaming allowed me to be social on my terms and it helped me to build confidence and grow into the man I am today.

The social side of gaming only increased in importance as I got older. FIFA was what brought my freshman hall together and helped form some of the strongest friendships I have ever had. We would all cram into the “hang out” room on our hall and play FIFA for endless hours. In between classes, you could always just swing by and expect someone would be playing. It even made good pre-game material. We created a drinking game (aptly named “FIFA drinking game”. I know, very creative) where everyone would place a bet on who they thought would win a game, and whenever the other player scored you would have to drink. Junior and Senior year, we would get big groups of friends together at our lodge to play Jackbox games and laugh the night away at our hilariously immature pokes at one another in our answers. Gaming also helped me to stay in touch with people I cared about while at school. My brothers and I barely ever would pick up the phone and call each other, but we regularly hopped on Heroes of the Storm and caught up over voice chat.

As my life has continued to evolve, so has my love of gaming. Now gaming is something I do to relax and unwind. My wife isn’t a big gamer, so gone are the 10-hour gaming marathons of yesteryear. Instead, I grab gaming time where I can find it. Early on the weekends. On my Switch while we watch TV. I may only play for 5 or 10 minutes at a time most days, but it’s still something I continue to enjoy.

I have always loved gaming and I really believe in the medium’s power. The power to bring people together. The power to create the jobs of the future and to connect people from all across the world. My love of gaming has evolved over time and I am sure it will continue to evolve in the future. However it does, I am excited to watch gaming’s progress and I hope that in the future I can be part of shaping that direction and development.

How will technology change venture capital over the next 20 years?

For an industry that is ostensibly predicated on being at the cutting edge of technology, venture capital itself has been relatively slow to adopt new technologies. Sure, VCs themselves are all highly technically literate and drive the newest Teslas and have all the latest fitness trackers, but the profession itself looks largely the way it did 20 years ago. Why is that? Will things really be that different for the industry in the next 20 years?

A Tortoise Industry whose job it is to bet on Hares

So why has venture been slow to adopt new technologies? There are a bunch of reasons for this but I will share some of the few that I find most compelling. First and foremost, venture capital is, and likely always will be, a relationship-driven industry. It’s about people and networks. Not about technological supremacy. And that makes sense. It’s hard for there to be a meaningful ROI on technology as a venture capital investor today. Maybe there are some cost efficiencies that can be realized by adopting middle and back-office platforms, but it’s important to remember where VCs make their money. They don’t do it on driving incremental efficiencies. They do it on having outsized, power-law outcomes on companies they get into early enough to have meaningful ownership at the end of the day. It’s especially interesting to compare venture capital to public market investing where technology adoption has been so prevalent. Why the difference? Because in public market investing the margins really do matter. When you are trying to beat benchmarks in a hyper-competitive market with clean and readily-available information, efficiencies generated by technological adoption really do make a world of difference. Since venture capital operates in much murkier waters, there just hasn’t been the same push to roll out the technology.

Another reason that VCs don’t leverage technology nearly as much as they invest in it, is that it is difficult to do so in the spaces they are playing. So much information is obfuscated in private markets. It is really difficult to build any sort of quantitative models or use technology to evaluate companies or entrepreneurs. As the old saying goes “crap in, crap out”. Without access to high-quality information, your options are to A) invest in a niche space where information is relatively available or B) hire an army of pencil pushers to do data clean up and acquisition. It’s really tough. There are just so many different variables you need to take into account. And even if you get all the data you could ever want on some companies, comparing them is extremely difficult at the early stages of a company’s lifecycle. Any VC that tells you they are data-driven today really just means that they have a convoluted grading system that they shoehorn their companies into to justify their own personal biases.

How Technology Could Change Venture Capital

Is venture capital doomed to always be behind the tech curve? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t say that venture capital will ever get to the point of the technological adoption of private markets, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Here are a few ideas on where we could see technology impact venture capital over the coming decades.

Artificial Intelligence

Remember how difficult I said it was to build predictive models for private businesses? There is a good chance that AI changes that in the next 20 years. Why is it so difficult to use analytics in venture? Massive amounts of unstructured data with tons of variables. What is AI good at finding patterns in? Massive amounts of unstructured data with tons of variables. AI has the potential to completely change how companies are evaluated and talent is identified. The biggest challenge will be feeding artificial intelligence models the right kind of data when that data isn’t easily found. If someone can solve the data question, then watch out. If I were you I would keep my eyes on the companies who are building out proprietary flows of that data. Companies like Carta have access to the inner workings of a variety of private companies. What are the chances they leverage that at some point?

Portfolio Management

Portfolio management is tough. Giving all of your companies the attention they need just doesn’t scale well. Technology will continue to decouple aspects of portfolio and fund management from VCs. Automated data collection, quarterly updates, portfolio rebalancing, reserve allocation planning, capital calls, and more. We are in the early innings of this game but there are already multiple players looking to take this work out of investors’ hands. More mature industries like Private Equity have had providers handling much of this work for decades. I expect that we will see more and more venture shops “outsource” many aspects of fund and portfolio management to technology so they can focus on their highest leverage activities.

Fundraising

Within the last few years, there has been a veritable explosion in technology solutions aimed at startup fundraising. I expect that in the future technology will provide solutions for GP fundraising as well. Fundraising is a highly manual process that has not evolved in decades. There is an opportunity here for technology to streamline the space. Matchmaking between VCs raising funds and investors is a highly manual process mostly driven by word of mouth and pounding-the-pavement networking. Technologies that made this process easier would be valuable for both GPs and LPs. Perhaps the place where technology could make the biggest impact is for first-time funds. Believe it or not, the median first-time fund will generally outperform the median fund managed by a more experienced investor. First-time funds however are notoriously hard to raise, especially for people who don’t have an ivy league or tech royalty pedigree. What would an angel list look like for first-time fund managers?

Deal Execution

Every investor knows the difficulty that comes with getting a deal across the finish line. Last-minute negotiations and ever-growing red-line version lists can make the last 5% of a deal as painstaking as the first 95%. Automation has the potential to bring massive efficiencies to these processes in the future. Collaborative documents instead of back and forth redlined word docs. Optimized automatic negotiations based on each party’s preferences. E-Signatures and E-Notaries. These technologies will have sweeping impacts across much of the legal profession and transactions of any kind and they will make a meaningful difference in the way that venture capital deals are executed.

These are a few of my ideas about how technology will change the world of venture capital. Let me know your ideas in the comments below or on twitter. Until next time!

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The Future of Education

The COVID-19 Pandemic will have long-lasting impacts on our society. One of the sectors where normalcy has been the most disrupted and which will likely undergo the most change is education. Millions of students have had to move from in-person classrooms to remote learning almost overnight. While not all of the long-term effects of this pandemic will be positive, I believe that the evolution education will undergo will be long overdue.

Our education system has been deteriorating for decades. A system predicated on conformity has not been able to keep pace with the tools and methods necessary to best equip learners to flourish in modern society. I believe that the coronavirus’ impact will be less of a seismic shift for education and more of a wake-up call to the massive impacts that technology has been making on the learning environment. The three technology trends that I think will leave the largest impressions on education are the rise of remote teaching, more personalized lessons, and life-long learning.

Remote Teaching

Whether we wanted it or not, remote teaching is here and my guess is that it will be here to stay. As school districts and universities have tried to flip the switch on remote learning, what has become clear is that teaching remotely requires a different skill set and tool kit than teaching in person. This may sound obvious, but as I have spoken with those who are experiencing this first hand, it is striking how different the experience can be depending on whether or not your teacher was prepared. Teachers who were prepared had developed asynchronous lectures, experiential modules, and environments where students could collaborate. Teachers who weren’t, propped up an iPhone on some textbooks in the back of the room and continued trying to teach as if nothing had changed. The reality is that there isn’t an inherently superior type of learning. Both remote and in-person education have their shares of pros and cons. I expect that in the future we will see the rise of more blended styles of learning that combine the collaboration and communication of in-person learning with the convenience and asynchronicity of remote education.

Personalized Lessons

Modern education’s most fundamental flaw is the forced structure of the one-to-many classroom. Teachers are put in the impossible situation of trying to keep 30+ different students with different needs and learning paces in lock-step as they navigate government-imposed standardized curriculums. Inevitably some portion of the class is left behind. Either lessons move too fast and struggling students are left in the dust or they move at a snail’s pace with high achievers becoming bored (and if they are anything like I was growing up, resorting to distracting their fellow students). Technology now allows us to meet students where they are and not where a one-size-fits-none curriculum tells us they should be. Students can learn at their own pace, investing more time to understand concepts they struggle with and speeding through those that are intuitive to them. This technology is already in use and its adoption will only increase as a result of forced experiences with remote learning. Altitude Learning develops software that empowers existing schools to build a more personalized learner-centric curriculum. Lambda School has gate assessments that their students must pass in order to move forward with their education. Once a student has mastered a certain section or skill, they become student teachers to help mentor newer students, developing even further mastery.

Life-Long Learning

As the trend of increasing automation continues to accelerate, workers will be required to continuously upskill throughout their careers. Technologies supporting life-long learning will make it easy and enjoyable for people to take courses in subjects that interest them. I have been keeping myself busy through quarantine by going through Bram Kanstein’s No Code MVP course. I am sure it won’t be the last course like this that I will take. I believe we will continue to see more and more courses built off of an individual’s personal expertise. These are a great way to learn no matter what age you are and a nice cherry on top is that they allow people to monetize their expertise in a powerful way (they are a great example of micropreneurship). With the proliferation of technologies like no-code software, it has never been easier to build and consume educational content over the course of your life.

The cat is out of the bag. Education has been too broken for too long and I believe that the coronavirus pandemic is exactly the spark the sector needs to start reinventing itself. What impact do you think COVID-19 will have on education? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments below!

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Lessons Learned from 2+ Years of Weekly Writing

I wrote my first post on this blog in November 2017. Since then I have (more or less) been writing weekly. I started the blog as part of my job search process trying to find a job in venture capital. It has evolved into something so much more than that. Part professional development. Part mental health therapy. All me.

When I started this blog I wrote solely about the world of venture capital and technology startups. Over time, and especially after I got my job at a venture capital firm, the blog became more personal in nature. I liked this transition. I now write about whatever I want to write about. Turns out that venture capital still continues to be a meaningful part of that. But I also sprinkle in my personal development, views on pop culture, and lyrical waxings for flavor.

In this post, I will share some of the lessons I have learned along this journey so far.

Begin.

I will start with the most important part of writing. Starting it. The most common response I get from people who have read my blog is “I’ve always wanted to write!” Well, what is stopping you? I’m not trying to be insensitive. I know how hard it is. In some ways, it gets easier with practice and in some ways, it doesn’t. A blank page and a deadline are always intimidating. But there is something truly thrilling about it as well. The hardest part of writing something new every week is just writing that first sentence. Once you get going, it generally flows pretty easily. (In fact, if it isn’t flowing once you have started, that is usually a pretty good sign that you picked the wrong topic to write about.) My biggest piece of advice I can give is simply to start. I recently read the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and it is the book I recommend to anyone trying to write more. The anecdote she shares on the back of the book superbly sums up writing.

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said "‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

If any of you are procrastinators like me I imagine this hit similarly close to home. It’s easy for writing to feel overwhelming. Whether it is a blog post, a novel, or even a tweet, it is always difficult to create something out of nothing. The best way to get over that hump is simply to start putting one foot in front of the other. To take it bird by bird. It doesn’t even have to be about what you ultimately want to write about. If you are struggling to come up with something to write, get out a blank piece of paper and jot down a running stream of your thoughts. You will be amazed by how much easier it is to start writing once your thoughts have started flowing.

The Power of Writing

Writing has gotten me into rooms and conversations that I had no business being a part of. I by no means have a massive following on this blog, but even I have seen huge asymmetric benefits come from it. Writing is the best kind of bet you can take. The downside is capped. For me the downside is time. I sacrifice an hour or two a week to write. It’s not nothing, but it also isn’t that big of a deal. I probably spend more time watching Hearthstone videos on youtube each week so if I need to cut something out that will be the first thing to go. A small sacrifice in the face of the potential upside. You never know who is going to read your work and reach out. You never know if what you’re saying will strike a chord with someone. I have had many personal and professional opportunities crop up solely because of my writing. And the best part is that writing compounds over time. The longer that I consistently write, the more it differentiates me. Things like writing are the best kind of flywheel. The more you do it, the more benefit you see from it, which makes you want to do it even more.

The Pocket Knife of the Mind

Recently I have gotten into pocket knives— ahem I mean multi-tools. My parents got me a fancy new backpack for my birthday and since then I have been into the idea of the “Everyday Carry” (or “EDC” if you are especially hip and yes, this really is a real thing). As part of that newfound interest, I have acquired a couple of new multi-tools. The thing that I have found with multi-tools is that if you don’t regularly use them, you don’t see any use for them. That changes as soon as you have one. Suddenly you see all kinds of uses for it everywhere. Writing is the same way. Once you get into the habit of coming up with stories, you start to see them everywhere. I write a post each week, but I generally come up with 2-3 ideas for new posts each week. When I am in the habit of keeping an eye out for those nuggets of an idea, I see them when they pop up. I am not special. You have these ideas too. You just aren’t used to seeing them that way since you aren’t used to the pocket knife of writing.

Develop a system

So all these little golden ideas I just mentioned. Everyone has them. But almost no one captures them. The world’s best idea won’t do you a lot of good if you don’t remember it when it comes time to start writing the next day.

It doesn’t really matter how you do it. You can use a notebook or an app or you can simply send yourself text messages. I have a page set up in Notion to capture all of my blog post ideas quickly from my phone. Whatever works for you, so long as you are able to quickly and efficiently capture and store those ideas so you can come back to them later and turn them into your magnificent writings.

Inconsistently Consistent

As with much of life, when it comes to putting out content, consistency is key. When I started writing I would do a post every 2-3 weeks. I didn’t have a real schedule and it was only ever when I could carve out some significant time for it. Over time, I focused on writing shorter posts more consistently. The one thing every audience appreciates, no matter how big or how small, is consistency. Set expectations with yourself and your audience and then stick to them. You don’t have to be militant about it. It’s your content, if you want to take a week off, you can. But know that the more consistent you can be the more it will positively impact your readership and the quality of your writing. When you stick to a consistent schedule, you get in a groove. You have an easier time getting started and you come up with more ideas of what to write about. My best advice is to pick whatever schedule that you can stick to consistently. It’s better to write something once a month than to write inconsistently every 1-3 weeks. Your readers will thank you for it and it WILL make your writing stronger.

Chop Wood and Carry Water

Writing is about the process. The quicker you can learn to fall in love with the process of writing, the quicker you will become a better writer. I am a big believer in being process-oriented in as much as you can in life. Writing is no exception. If you focus too much on the outcome you will either a) fall short of your goal or b) attain it at unnecessary costs. Focus on the process. Do I write for professional development and opportunities? Sure, but that isn’t my focus. I write for me. I practice writing so I can improve and hone that skill. I find writing therapeutic. Putting my thoughts into cogent sentences really helps me think through them. Sometimes I find myself surprised by the results. That is my focus. This blog would be worth writing even if no one ever read it. That’s how I am able to stick with it. I love that people read my blog. It means so much when someone reaches out to tell me that they enjoyed something I created.

But that’s only ever going to be the cherry on top. Because I have learned to fall in love with the inherent benefits of the writing process, not just the outcomes of that process. I have learned to chop wood and carry water when it comes to writing. And you can too.

Perfect is the enemy of good

At Carlyle, one of our founders had a saying: “By the time you have completed the most perfect due diligence you possibly can, you will have lost the deal.” Perfection is an impossible standard to strive towards and it is one of the biggest pitfalls that nascent writers have. There is this pressure thinking that if you are going to put a blog post or tweet out into the world it needs to be perfect. You should craft it with care, but perfection should never be the aim. If you won’t settle for anything less than perfect, you will never click that ‘Publish’ button. Do your best, read everything over for typos and then send that sucker on its merry way.

Let me let you in on a little secret I have learned about creating content on the internet. Say something uninteresting and no one cares. The algorithms won’t pick it up. It will be like it never even happened. Hate to break it to you, but no one is combing through your old posts to see how you messed up. If you, at some point, do reach the level of quasi-celebrity where someone is doing that, I imagine you have bigger fish to fry. No one will read your subpar writing, but write something good and it becomes a whole different story. Suddenly people are liking and sharing. The algorithms that buried your mediocrity are now pouring fuel on the fire of your achievement. Writing publicly is a totally asymmetric bet. Write poorly and no one knows. Write well and it will blow up. No, I am not saying to just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. But whatever you do, don’t try to be perfect.

Find What Works for You

As I mentioned, I originally started this blog as a way to land a job in venture capital. As such, my initial writing focused on researching and analyzing specific companies and markets. I wanted to show that I could do the work of being a VC before I actually was one. Once I actually got a job in the industry, my blog started to change. It became more personal. I started writing about the things I was interested in. My posts became shorter and more consistent. I was doing less research and more thinking. That’s what the blog is now. I write about the things I care about. Yes, venture capital and entrepreneurship. But also boardgames. And Arsenal. And whatever TV show I may be watching or book I may be reading. That’s the beauty of having a personal blog. You can be just that, personal. The internet is so big that writing about what I care about is interesting enough for others to tune in every week. And it is WAY more enjoyable for me to just write about whatever I want to write about. Remember, learn to fall in love with the process.

If you are thinking about writing, go for it. It’s a small sacrifice of time for big potential upsides down the road. Come up with a process and then fall in love with it. Don’t try to be perfect, just try to be genuinely you. The internet is big enough that you will find your tribe. If something you write flops, don’t sweat it because no one will read it. But the second you write something good it will seem like everyone will. Consistency over volume.

If even a small part of you feels like you may want to write, then just start and see where it takes you.

And if you get stuck, just remember to take things bird by bird.

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Not Another Coronavirus Post

It’s hard to write about anything that isn’t related to the COVID-19 these days. It is hard to write about anything related to COVID-19 these days.

Catch 22.

If you write about anything else, you are tone-deaf. Nothing else seems quite so important in the face of one of the greatest times of crisis in modern human history.

But by that same token, the worldwide pandemic is all we hear about. It is easy to get fatigued and anxious about it which is simply not helpful when there is so much outside of our control. Does the world really need another post from a non-expert?

I really don’t know.

I am struggling to put metaphorical pen to paper this week. As I did the last week. And the week before.

The joy of a personal blog is that I don’t have to force it. So I am taking the week off and leaving you with something that gave me a lot of joy during a dark time. Enjoy Jim telling you about some of the good things going on in the world.

Tempo versus Value

One of my favorite hobbies is gaming and one of my favorite games is Hearthstone.

Hearthstone is a digital trading card game set in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft universe. I was big into WoW when I was in high school. I fondly remember raiding Firelands and Dragonsoul with my brother two nights a week for at least 4 hours each night not to mention all the hours we would spend outside of raiding to optimally prepare our characters. His character, Nubrionis, was a druid healer. My character, Aberon, was a hunter who supplied massive quantities of sustained range DPS (Damage Per Second). In one funny anecdote, I remember the day I got into college my Mom went out to get pizza to celebrate. Unfortunately, it was raid night and so my brother and I had to eat our pizza and garlic knots in front of the computer.

As a big WoW fan, I was really excited when Hearthstone was announced. As a kid, I had been really into trading card games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. To have a digital card game set in one of my favorite fictional worlds seemed like a dream.

I applied to be part of the closed beta for the game and fondly remember getting my access key my sophomore year of college and playing the crap out of Inner Fire Priest.

I’ve played the game on and off ever since. I take breaks and play other games, but I always seem to keep coming back to it. I love the strategy and coming up with new and interesting decks. Recently the game came out with a new “Battlegrounds” game mode which I have been having a lot of fun with,

I take you on this long and winding preamble because I want to talk about two concepts I learned through playing hearthstone and how they apply to startups.

Tempo and Value.

What are Tempo and Value in Hearthstone?

Tempo and Value were not created by Hearthstone. They are critically important aspects of any card game.

Value is generally a bit easier to understand. Value is how much bang for your buck you get with each card. Value is how much “stuff” that card does for you.

Tirion Fordring is a great example of a value card that has been around since the beginnings of the game. Tirion costs 8 mana (max you can have in a game is 10) so it is a big investment to play, but for that cost, Tiron gives you a decent sized 6/6 body that has Divine Shield (absorbs the first damage it takes) and taunt (your opponent must attack Tirion before attacking you or one of your other cards) AND when Tirion dies, you get to equip a 5/3 weapon. A normal 6/6 card with Divine Shield and Taunt would probably cost you about 7 mana. A 5/3 weapon would normally cost you at least 6 mana. So with Tirion you are paying 8 mana for a card that probably gives you at least 13 mana worth of “stuff”. Talk about value. Value is important because each player can only start with 30 cards in their deck. If you run out of value, you almost always lose the game. BUT, the deck that has more value doesn’t always win. That is where tempo comes in.

Tempo is a little bit trickier. The best way to think about tempo is as the momentum of the game. if you have a 4/4 and a 3/2 on your side of the board, and your opponent only has a 3/2, you have the tempo. You have the momentum. Tempo swings are really important in Hearthstone because the player who goes first almost always will begin the game with a slight tempo advantage. Backstab is an example of a tempo card. Backstab doesn’t do that much “stuff”. It does two damage to an undamaged minion for zero mana. For its mana cost, it has decent value, but where Backstab really shines is as a tempo card. Two damage in and of itself isn’t too much to write home about, but because of it’s 0 mana cost, you can play it on the same turn as another card. Let’s say it’s turn three and your opponent has a 3/2 on the board and you don’t have anything. Currently, they have the tempo. On your turn, you play a 3/3 and then backstab your opponents 3/2 which kills it. Now you have a 3/3 and your opponent has nothing on the board. You used backstab to swing the tempo in your favor. Now you have the momentum and the initiative until your opponent wrestles it back. Most games in Hearthstone come down to a constant tug of war between each player fighting for tempo. The further ahead you get on tempo, the harder it is for your opponent to get it back.

Tempo and Value in Startups

I can’t help but relate these concepts to the world of startups. In my experience, startups are all about tempo. That really is the only advantage they have over larger incumbent companies. They can move quicker. They have the momentum and can executive and make adjustments at a speed that would be impossible for a more established company. They thrive on shooting out of the blocks and hoping they can build up enough of an advantage before others can catch up. In two years of being a venture capital investor, if I had to pick just one attribute for a startup, it wouldn’t be a fantastic product or even an experienced team. It would simply be a team that can execute at speed.

Blitzscaling. Move fast and break things. A focus on moving quickly to capture market share. Prioritization of growth over profitability.

All signs of a tempo-focused mindset in startup land.

But there is a danger of being all-in on tempo. In Hearthstone, if you are playing a tempo-oriented deck and your opponent is playing a value-oriented deck, the only way that you can win is by trying to beat your opponent as quickly as possible. Similar to a startup trying to grab market share, if you move too slow and your opponent can hold on long enough to start playing cards like Tirion, your prospects are bleak.

If your deck is too heavily tempo-oriented, your cards may not make enough of an impact over the long-run. You will run out of steam and your opponent will be able to catch up. Even for tempo decks, value is important. As I said earlier, if you run out of value in your deck, you lose.

The story is similar for startups. Yes, tempo is of the utmost concern, but if you don’t have enough value, you are going to fall short of your goals. For startups, value takes the form of unit-economics and a product that customers absolutely love. Get either of these things wrong and you may be tempoing yourself headlong down a bridge to nowhere. Startups thrive based on tempo, but they survive through value. They need to have enough there there that when adversity comes their way the underlying fundamentals are strong enough to weather the storm. They need enough cash and unit economics that are strong enough to be able to sustain them when their tempo lead starts to thin. Value is your margin for error. It is why companies who have found product-market fit can afford to make mistakes. Because when customers are ripping the product out of your hand, you can afford to execute less than perfectly.

The startup life is the tempo life. It’s about moving fast and learning faster. It’s the true competitive differentiator and it is what defines the winners at the end of the day. But startups cannot forget about value. They can’t ignore underlying business quality. They need to be able to have enough value to carry them once their tempo advantage over competitors has run out or if an adverse economic environment strikes.

Tempo. Value.

Who ever said games couldn’t be educational?

The Mind-Killer

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

I am currently in the middle of reading Frank Herbert’s sci-fi magnum opus, Dune. The other day I came across the above prayer uttered by the main character, Paul, as he tries to come to grip with his world falling apart.

I found it poignantly applicable to the times we are all living through. People are afraid. I am afraid. We are in uncharted waters. In modern history, we have never faced anything like this. We don’t really know how things are going to progress. We don’t really know how effective the draconian measures we are putting into place will be at lessening the impact of COVID-19. We don’t know whether the measures we are putting into place will do more harm than the virus itself.

We don’t know when this will pass over us. We don’t know when we will be able to turn around and see the path of destruction this virus has wrought.

But we do know that it will pass over us. While we are in the thick of things it is hard to believe that they will ever change. Just three weeks ago everything was normal. And now here we are and everything is decidedly not normal. It feels like this will go on forever, but it won’t.

This will end. And we will remain.

But what to do in the meantime?

If fear is the mind-killer, then I believe that action is the fear-killer.

I think that is the real reason why our present circumstances are so hard to take. When you are quarantined inside, it is hard to take action. It is easy to feel powerless.

I know I have felt that way over the past week. Like what I do doesn’t matter. That whatever I might write this week wouldn’t make any sort of difference.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Every inch matters. Doing little things the right way makes a big difference over time. You never know what kind of impact a kind word of encouragement or offer of help can have.

Especially at times like these.

I want to do my part. This is a list of resources I have come up with after a little bit of research. The workbook is publicly editable so please add helpful resources you have come across as well and share to your network.

Pooling resources may not be much but at least it is something we can all do to try to help provide clarity and guidance during these difficult times.

Unfortunately, we have more to fear than fear itself these days. That doesn’t mean we need to give in to the fear. We can fight against it through action.

And we will beat it.

Just like we will beat this disease.

Just like we will beat any future challenge we face.