Hiring

We’re going to be hiring for a lot of positions starting now and through perhaps the next year at least depending on how fast we can fill some of these roles. We’ve largely kept the headcount stable for the last 3+ years despite growing significantly.

We’ve been incredibly efficient and focused which has been a big lever for us despite not adding headcount. But it’s become obvious that now is the time to invest a bit more in people and we’ll start adding quite a few folks to both the New York and Amsterdam office in the next 12-18 months.

Growth is always exciting in many ways. We can add new talented smart people who all bring in brand new ideas and exciting energy.

At the same time, hiring is also incredibly difficult. There’s a lot of smart and talented people out there, but they also need to fit what we’re building at Secfi. We operate in a very niche world and finding someone who truly wants to build a company/firm is easier said than done. In fact, most people say they want to have ownership and build, but not everyone truly means it.

Top of mind for me before we begin this hiring spree is to ensure that we align on both what we’re looking for and our process. The hiring landscape has changed significantly since we last made a big push nearly 5 years ago. On top of that, Secfi and our culture has changed. We need to make sure we adapt and hire for Secfi 2026, now Secfi 2021.

Happy Birthday Colin

Colin turned 2 on Thursday and we spent the last few nights celebrating him. After sending him with some treats to daycare on Thursday and having a nice dinner on his actual birthday, my wife’s family came in from Baltimore on Friday to continue the party.

On Saturday, we took him to Dumbo and let him ride the carousel. We had friends come over and had a big celebration with pizza, cake, and ice cream afterwards. Colin had an amazing time and had a noticeable pep in his step with everyone in town giving him attention.

On Sunday, we went to dim sum with the family in Chinatown and then had a nice “yummy” dinner. Watching him scream “yummy” after taking him to new dinner spots is one of my favorite things and warms my heart. I love that he loves good food just like his Dad. My wallet may suffer from it, but it’s something that makes me happy and I’m happy that it also makes him happy.

The weekend was a lot but it was special. I’m not sure how many more times we’ll get the entire crew together. I did my best to remember that this weekend was not about me but about my extended family spending time with Colin.

I’m also grappling with the fact that Colin is now 2. The days are long but the years are short. It felt just like yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital. Sophia and I spent a lot of time this weekend going through old photos. It won’t be long until I saw this again when he’s getting ready to move out of the house.

I feel incredibly blessed to have an amazing son. Again, I don’t know what I did to deserve such a great kid like Colin but I don’t take it for granted. He’s sweet and kind, and just absolutely a joy. I’m so lucky to be his Father and have a chance to show him the world.

Agentic commerce?

One of the hot topics that everyone is talking about is agents doing your shopping for you. Popular apps like Muse by Meta and Instinct can now log into (most) places with your credentials and handle your shopping for you.

In the last few days, I’ve read that DoorDash and UberEats discussed the agents in food deliveries and both have mentioned miniscule amounts of orders by agents.

I’m personally trying to figure out these agents doing my shopping for me. For the most part, I’m not completely seeing it. When it comes to my food, I take joy in searching for something that I actually want to eat. Yes, it can get overwhelming and take longer than expected but that’s because of my own indecision. If I know what I want and I want to order quickly, it takes me about 30 seconds now. Is the agents benefit here really saving you that minute?

On the other end of the spectrum, I completely get the benefit of having an agent book flights for you. That is something that always takes me more time and I will probably start using that use case first. But once again, I’m still running into the problem that if I know exactly which flight I want then it only takes me 5 minutes to book it. It takes me longer solely because I’m trying to make a decision on the best flight.

Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I’m not fully seeing the gigantic benefit of an agent going through a checkout for you. At the end of the day, I still want to make the decision of what I want to wear, what I want to eat, and what flight I want to take. That’s the thing that takes the longest.

All that said, I do see the major benefit of an agent doing my research for me and that so far has been the biggest win for me.

Wealth tax

I was pleased to see that the Wealth tax in California did not pass. It was a terrible proposal that was not well thought out. From a practical standpoint, it just made no sense and would effectively force entrepreneurs leading the biggest companies to move.

The impact of such tax would do significant damage to California which is home to the world’s innovation hub in Silicon Valley. The ultimate bottom line would’ve been a net negative for California.

All that said, the wealth disparity in this country continues to grow and needs to be addressed. I believe vilifying the wealthy is the wrong way to go about things, but thinking about it from the other side, I also understand the disdain. If you are someone who is struggling to make ends meet, which is a lot of America, and then you see how the other side lives, it’s easy to sit here and blame them for your problems whether right or wrong.

We are living in a country where everyone is getting wealthier, but the already wealthier are getting wealthier at a much faster pace than the lower income level. That’s the problem that needs to be addressed.

The blue wave

The midterms went as the prediction markets predicted. A gigantic blue tsunami washed over the country last night. Perhaps most surprising was the Texas governor and senate race going blue in a place which has always been a red stronghold.

Really the only GOP “win” was holding on to Florida but that much closer than most expected and you could chalk up that despite winning, it’s still a loss. It went pretty much as bad as it could for the Republicans.

When Trump took office 2 years ago, I wrote that I wanted him to succeed and do well. That would mean America has done well. Two years in and the America First agenda was election propaganda as Trump started a war with Iran. Prices have gone up. The legislative branch largely went on vacation for the past 2 years.

Is MAGA officially dead? It’s hard not to see the GOP finally turn against Trump. At the same time, there’s a lot of cowards that have significant personal gain in this so I can see nothing happening.

For the Democrats, the path to retaking the White House in 2028 is clear. But knowing the Democratic party, I can see them fumbling the bag. I don’t have a ton of confidence, even as a San Francisco Democrat. There’s still a lot of lunatics in the party, but I am starting to love Jon Ossoff.

We can start to hope that maybe we’ve hit the bottom and we’re going back up finally, but I know not to get my hopes up completely.

Time

Possibly the hardest part about being a parent is time. That is not having enough time to do everything that you want (and sometimes need). I wake up at 6-6:30 everyday, shower and get ready, and then meditate for 10 minutes before I get Colin up at around 7:00am. From then, it’s getting Colin ready and feeding him breakfast. We’re out the door by 8:15am to drop him off at daycare.

We work all day and leave by 5pm to get him from daycare at 5:30am. The next 2 hours is spending time with Colin and dinner, and we have him in bed by 7:30pm. With a 10pm bedtime, that leaves around 2-2.5 hours of time to ourselves. That time is mostly spent catching up on work and planning with Sophia. If we’re lucky, we get 45 minutes of TV to relax.

It’s not all so bad. I’m lucky to have flexibility in my work day that I can get a 45 minute workout in during the day which I have made sure to prioritize as my health comes first. All that means is that I do need to catch-up in the evening after bed time but that’s a fair tradeoff. Unfortunately, if we have another child, things are going to get worse.

Thus is the life of a parent. Last night, I spent a few minutes just watching videos of the new GTA 6 game. It was fun watching from afar but I know deep down I won’t get to play video games anytime soon. I also have a bunch of personal financial items to get through including setting up a will and estate plan, and also looking at some investments that I wanted to make. That list of items has been pushed back months at this point.

There’s just too much to do and too little time. Prioritization of my time is incredibly important. Colin and Sophia come first and I want to ensure that I spend as much time with my family as I can. Then my health comes second which I’ve done a good job prioritizing. From then, work is obviously incredibly important and where I need to also focus.

That leaves everything else including my social life, personal leisure, and to-do items such as my finances. I’ve outsourced a lot of my finances to my advisors which is great, but I could spend more time getting through the important stuff that I need to be involved in. With time at a premium, it’s the right tradeoff but I do need to find more time to catch-up.

Halloween and exciting times ahead

Halloween with Colin was a blast. I loved taking him around Brooklyn trick or treating. He was having a blast exploring the world and getting candy for the first time. It’s not easy, but parenthood absolutely rocks and I’m probably the happiest that I’ve ever been in my life right now.

It’s my second weekend in a row of being home and just focused on recovery and being a Dad. I feel rested, optimistic, and happy. I’m excited to keep the good vibes going into Colin’s birthday weekend this week with my in-laws in town.

It’s an exciting time of the year. I always love the holidays in general, and it’s even more special with Colin being able to somewhat understand what’s happening. We go from Colin’s birthday, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas sprinkled with lots of work in-between.

On the work front, it’s always a hectic time of the year for us but we’re sitting in an incredible position to close out the year strong. It’s easy to be optimistic right now with the way everything is going, but I need to stay focused and not get sidetracked.

Real content

It’s been a busy week and I’m exhausted. I’m taking tomorrow off and going to take advantage of the nice fall weather and get a round of golf in, and then just relax in the afternoon and unwind.

My first two days this week were basically back to back calls the entire days. I spent most of the day and night yesterday working on various marketing and content, and I have most of the day today blocked off to finish those projects. It’s been a refreshing change of pace the last couple of days.

In this world of AI we have unprecedented amount of content being published through social media, blogs, newsletters, etc. There is so much slop out there that it’s nauseating. Checking my LinkedIn this morning and I wanted to gouge my eyes out with the shit I was reading.

There’s never been more demand for high quality real content. AI is a great editor and thought partner, but I have forced myself to write (type) everything manually. Imperfection is a feature, not a bug. Readers nowadays can sense the difference within the first couple of sentences.

My first week of green recoveries

I woke up this morning and checked my Whoop to get a quick glance on my sleep stats. To my surprise, I was hit with a notification saying that this is my first time having 7 green recovery days in a row. I got my Whoop in February so in the 8-9 months I’ve been tracking my sleep and recovery, I had yet to have a 7 day stretch of good recoveries.

I knew that I had taken some steps back the last few months, but it was pretty shocking to me that I never had a full week of solid sleep. As you can guess, I’ve been feeling amazing this past week after getting back from my conference. I feel rested, optimistic and energized. When I get to bed, I’m naturally tired from the day and my stress levels have been well below average.

The silly part to all this is that the fixes were relatively simple. Lights off in bed at 10pm and switch to reading rather than staying on my phone. Over the weekend, I had some drinks and even went out with Sophia, but I kept things in check and still got to bed at my regular time.

I don’t actually need to be boring and change my life completely. On the flip side, these small changes make a huge meaningful difference in my mood and mental health. That extra 30-60 minutes of scrolling social media or extra drink is just not worth it.

Like always, it’s the small things that make a big difference.

Anthropic S1

Anthropic has finally filed their S1 with a target IPO in November. Finally. I haven’t had a chance to do a deep dive yet, but I plan on going through later this week once my schedule frees up a bit.

For now, it’s an amazing development for everyone in the ecosystem. Anthropic’s IPO had been holding the IPO window effectively shut for the last 6 months as no one wants to go out with them.

The rumors are suggesting that it’ll be a lower valuation IPO than SpaceX’s previous high. As the first major AI company to go public, it’s going to be an incredibly interesting one. It’s an unprecedented company in terms of revenue growth. Behind all that is $500B of contracted compute contracts.

I have no idea how this company will trade after they hit the market. There’s a lot of hype so my initial guess is that it’ll do well. But equally as important, we get the big elephant out of the room so other companies can also start testing the water hopefully. Of course, that’s dependent on things going at least decently well for Anthropic.

Ending the year strong

I had a great lowkey weekend which is exactly what I needed after a hectic week and a few less than ideal weeks. My seasonal allergies combined with travel really put me in a hole the last 3 weeks. Feeling rundown led to a lot more bad habits as I tried to make up for lost time.

I finally got back into green recoveries after living in the yellow and red for the last few weeks and my health has suffered. As a result, I felt great all weekend and was a much better husband and Dad. I was happier and more energetic all around. The joy I got this weekend from just simply being a Dad and husband this weekend topped anything in my life the last few weeks.

Finding a better balance and focusing on my recovery has been the theme of my year so far. Sitting here coming into the end of the year, it’s been a mixed a bag. It’s always felt like 2 steps forward and 1 step backwards. I had a lot of progress through the first half of the year, and then the last 4 months have just gotten away from me between summer travel and then work travel picking up the last couple of months.

It’s time for me to flip the switch and really focus on recovery first. That first starts with not overdoing plans and realizing that an easy night at home is warranted. As much as I want to go out and have fun, my body simply cannot handle it much anymore.

Secondly, it’s making sure that I get into bed on time and stay on that schedule — that started out well and things slowly creeped later. Over the course of a few weeks, that sleep debt really adds up and puts me in a spiral especially when it comes to the weekends. Critical to my sleep, the drinks are not helping my sleep. I’ve been proud with how much I’ve cut my drink count down over the last year and it’s significant progress, but that drink or two at dinner does enough damage to my sleep with very little to gain.

None of this is new of course and it’s something I’ve probably written about the most this year. But of course, writing about it and actually making changes is a big difference. I’ve put a fairly aggressive goal for the next 2 months to close out my year strong. I want to see a noticeable change in my recovery score these next 2 months, and along with that I want to finally see improvement in my VO2 max numbers which should reflect my overall health.

I’m excited to turn the page and get some good momentum going into 2027.

Security scramble

I got a full 8 hours of sleep last night and woke up feeling refreshed. I started my day with a hard run in the morning before work, and I’ve been knocking everything off my checklist quickly. I wish every day could start like this.

The big news of the day/week is the global cybersecurity issue over the PHP programming language. Researchers used frontier models to discover vulnerabilities in the language and leaks on those warnings put businesses and governments in a scramble.

With nearly 70% of the internet’s website containing PHP, there was a lot of panic with governments shutting down their own websites at times. It seems like everything has been contained for the most part, but I can imagine that this may just be the start of a pattern. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

It's good to be home

It was a fun but exhausting three and half days in Vegas for Money2020. A conference came and went, and I came away from the week absolutely spent and ready for recovery.

Part of that is the nature of Las Vegas. There’s always something about the place where I feel like I need to hop into a steam room and go through a detox for a week afterwards. The constant lights and feeling of darkness always puts me in an interesting mental headspace and it’s always hard for me to get into a routine when I’m there.

The other part is that I always bite off more than I can handle and I need to be smarter next time. Flying in Sunday morning means an early wake-up Saturday so I landed tired. I had planned to take it easy, but knowing where I’m at, I just need to accept that it’s not very realistic given the events and that the reason I’m there is to socialize.

Three nights in Vegas is one too many and I probably just need to accept things and fly out later or leave earlier to save myself a bit. Between all the events and dinners combined with the jet lag, it’s almost always impossible to get to bed early and actually feel rested. Two nights of good fun is plenty.

Lastly, there’s a mental block that I’ve been chasing on my health and recovery that I just need to get over at times. Nearly everyone on my flight home looked exhausted and that’s just the nature of conferences. You spend all day and evening walking around, socializing, and having fun. Not many people can feel amazing after that.

Money2020

I had a lot of fun last night as hosted a small happy hour at Money2020 for the 49er game. We had a pretty good turnout despite doing limited advertising and more importantly, we got to catch up with old friends and clients.

After last night, I’ve realized that we need to be doing a lot more of these events than we have in the past. It’s just great to be able to meet a lot of our partners in-person and really get to bond over some drinks and some football.

I had a lot of fun despite running on fumes and was able to get to bed at a decent time. I decided to let the young kids have fun at the 50Cent concert and went back to my room after a later dinner.

I feel a lot more energized this morning and even went on a quick 25 minute jog to get some endorphins going. But I am definitely tired and excited to get back home in my own bed tomorrow night.

For now, we have a full day of meetings sprinkled with some fun in between. Tuesday is historically a very fun day for Money2020 as people wrap up work and start to unwind a bit. Despite a bit of hesitation, I’m really glad I went to the event this year and I’m pumped for the day ahead.

Oh Vegas

I got into Vegas yesterday for Money2020. I spent the afternoon taking it easy, catching up on work, and just relaxing for the hectic few days ahead. I had fully planned to go to dinner with the team and be in bed early, but a couple close friends of mine were in town and hosting an event, so I decided to extend my night a bit and hang out.

I was half asleep when I got back to my room at 11pm. I have no regrets, but I could have used an extra couple hours of sleep as my jet lag got me up at 5am. Vegas has a funny way of doing this to me and seeing old friends in FinTech wanting to hang out is always a recipe for later nights.

On Money2020, I had thought the conference had gone slightly downhill over the last few years as less investors and companies seem to be participating. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by everything so far. FinTech may be down in general, but the people here building do not seem to mind the outside noise.

I’ve had a lot of fun since being here. Seeing my old FinTech crew that I met 7+ years ago when I first got started in FinTech has me feeling a lot of nostalgia. Of course, we’re all a bit older now and the partying has subsided quite greatly. I have some members of my team who are here that can carry the torch forward.

For today, I plan on seeing more friends and partners. Then we have a Secfi happy hour for the 49er game which will be fun. Luckily, the game should be over by 8pm or so and I’ll likely make a beeline for my bedroom after a long day.

How do companies price in agents?

I have Muse checking in weekly on flights for me back home for Christmas. I can tell you that I’m not the only one doing this. While the ease of having someone check the flights and try to find the best price is as easy as it’s ever been, I’m not so sure this will be a net positive for consumers down the road in terms of pure dollar spend.

Companies aren’t naive to what’s happening right now. They have more data and insights on consumer spending than we do. As such, anecdotally prices seem much higher than before. Part of that is due to the war in Iran, but I struggle to believe that is the only reason.

As companies get smarter about agents and AI doing our shopping for us, I’d imagine we’ll start to see prices increase to accommodate. Perhaps that is the product of the free markets — consumers may be willing to spend more if AI does the shopping for us.

A new office

I moved back to New York a little over 17 months ago. We wanted to centralize our office in New York so we can be in-person. The results have been astonishing and we’ve grown significantly as a business while only growing headcount slightly.

I know remote first companies can work, but for me and Secfi, we’ll always be some sort of an office first culture with flexibility attached. The benefits of being in person are just too big to ignore.

We’re doubling down on our office and will finally be looking to move out of the coworking space and into our own unit. It’s time and it’s fun in many ways, but it’s also not easy. Hiring plans change all the time.

We want room to grow into, but not too much room that it feels hollow. We need something nice, but also within the budget. Every neighborhood in New York has pros and cons and everyone has preferences.

Given that we’re an office first team, a nice space will also go a long way in hiring and retention. Lots of fun times ahead, but lots of work to be done in the meantime.

The process

I haven’t watched the Saban documentary yet, but it’s been on my list when I have some free time. I heard it’s an amazing watch and there’s a lot to learn from the greatest coach of all time.

One part that I saw on social media that I’m excited to watch is when Nick Saban talks about his process and why that is the most important thing rather than results. He was once 3 holes from finishing at Augusta, and his caddy told him that he could bogey every hole from here on out and shoot under 80. You can probably guess what happened after that.

Saban uses that example to emphasize that it’s always about the process and what you can control. In sports, you can do everything right and still lose the game. Sometimes another team is simply better. But more times than not, if you stick to the process and execute correctly, that’ll produce the result you want. See Saban’s national championship records.

One of the more frustrating parts about my job is similar to sports, you can work your ass off and do everything right, but something just doesn’t pan out the way you want it to. Sometimes the numbers just don’t line. Or timing. Or the broader market just impacted you.

In business just like in sports, results matter of course. But how you get to a result is by focusing on the process, not the other way around.

Team culture

It’s been a tough football season so far for my Washington Huskies and an incredibly one for my San Francisco 49ers. It’s been an interesting tale of two cultures and teams.

My Huskies had a weird offseason with our Head Coach seemingly looking for ways to get out of Seattle. He flirted with the UCLA, Michigan, and Florida jobs, and got none of them. Then our “star” QB hopped into the transfer portal only to be brought back because of a contract he signed.

My worst fear was that the locker room had been lost and he players weren’t going to respond well to either of those. At the half way point of the season, it seems that things have gone worse than even what I thought was possible. We are simply too talented to be 3-3 and the coach has lost the locker room.

On the other end of the spectrum, the 49ers also had a weird offseason. Our head coach got into a car accident and was absent a lot of training camp. Injuries and jokes about the substation causing those injuries were everywhere. But the team has excelled all expectations and is currently the Super Bowl favorites and undefeated after a big win against rival Seattle on Sunday.

It’s clearly a tale of two cultures and locker rooms. One in the Huskies where there is no team chemistry when your coach and QB, two of the highest paid people in the building wants to leave. The other side with the 49ers shows a team that clearly loves playing with each other. They seem to be playing with a chip on their shoulders. The way they hit sand played on Sunday with unsung rookies making huge plays shows that type of culture in that locker room.

As a big sports guy, I’ve always tried to bring that locker room team mentality to work. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned here, but chiefly amongst them is that if someone doesn’t want to be here, it’s not worth it no matter how talented they are.

Ups and downs of life

It’s 1pm on Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day depending on who you ask. I had an incredibly special morning with Colin. Sophia is working today and I’m supposed to have the day off, so I’ve been on childcare duty all morning. I took full advantage and was excited about a father-son day.

Colin and I spent the morning at the Prospect Park Zoo. It was a simple morning, but one that brought me so much joy. Watching him get excited to feed the farm animals and watching him glued to the window watching the fish swim was special. Showing your child the world is one of life’s simple pleasures that I won’t take for granted.

Right after I got Colin down for his nap, I got a text from one of my close friends from high school and she let me know that her sister’s cancer may have spread to her lungs. Needless to say, she is devasted and her heart is heavy. It was a heartbreaking moment reading that text and seeing someone that you love suffer and have to go through something like this.

It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for the last hour or so. It’s a weird feeling watching my son nap and smiling knowing that I helped bring him to life, and also going through news like this where life is so fragile.

I don’t really know what else to think besides that this is a reminder that everyday on earth is a blessing, and I need to stay present and enjoy every moment. I plan to do just that with Colin this afternoon after his nap.