Sunsetting of the DAOs and NFTs

Back in 2021, I started to play around with NFTs and DAOs. It was a crazy bubble and everyone knew it, but it also brought me back to the days of IRC and gaming. The online communities being created was a ton of fun to participate in.

I joined a golf club DAO, a sports gambling DAO, a gaming platform, and a couple other just random communities. You basically needed to buy a NFT to get access to these communities, and I shifted some of my crypto gains for play money to participate.

It was always a mixed bag. For most, it felt like speculation was the #1 reason they were there which is natural in a crazy market like that. I had no expectation of making money from these NFTs so things worked out rather nicely for me. But I was able to meet some cool people.

I golfed with a group of folks from LinksDAO and attended a few events. I still talk to some of them every now and then. That DAO eventually did succeed in buying a golf course in Scotland and is still running despite things slowing down significantly.

Most of the other projects I’m part of does seem like they are wrapping up and closing down. It was a fun run while it lasted, but most of these communities were built on the fact that the NFT prices would go up. It’s impossible to build a real community when all you can offer is an increase in value.

It’s the end of an era of these crypto projects. But I’ll probably pick a couple to stay involved with. It was a fun period especially when the world was still coming out of lockdown.

Grateful Monday

There’s a lot of miserable people in New York. This morning I had a grumpy guy push my backpack aside with a swipe as I waited behind a Dad and his kids trying to get through the turnstile. The train was still minutes away and there was zero reason to get agitated or frustrated.

I really try to my best to not let these things impact me. I had to catch myself this morning to not say something to the guy. Misery loves company, and I have no reason to ruin my morning. Life isn’t perfect for me, but life is really good. After this amazing Father’s Day weekend, I’m feeling especially grateful for everything.

I had an incredible Friday “day-off”. With Sophia back in town, she let me go out and spend some time by myself. After a few hours of morning work, I went to to get a massage to relax. And then got a nice sushi lunch by myself. I met up with some friends at a bar for the US Men’s National Team game and had a few rounds with the guys.

On Saturday, we got a baby sitter and went to celebrate our friends’ baby shower. We don’t get to go out much, and it was again really nice being at a bar with friends just socializing. Even better, we were in bed by 10:30 and it made Sunday a bit better.

On Sunday, I got to celebrate Father’s Day by not doing too much but spending time with Colin and Sophia. I was a bit exhausted from the prior two nights, but just relaxing and watching Colin run around and live his best life was a special core memory for me. He’s at such a fun age where he’s now seeking me out and looking to play with me all the time.

Parenthood is exhausting, but every day is so incredibly special if you take the time to sit back and embrace the small moments. Core to being able to enjoy those moments is definitely being a better mind space. My sleep, rest, and health have all significantly improved in the last 6 months that I’ve prioritized it. That’s allowed me to be a better father and husband.

I’m not one for holidays and Father’s Day always felt like a bit of a fabricated and commercial one. With that said, it was a really good day to sit down and celebrate Colin, be proud of how far I’ve come as a parent in the last year, and also remind myself how grateful I should be for the life I have right now.

AI Travel Agent

My Dad has run a small travel company specializing in travel to Indonesia for the last 35 years. It’s a dying business with the age of the internet, but it was fun growing up and always was the spark for my interest in travel.

I’ve been frustrated the last couple days as I’ve been trying to book my flight to Uzbekistan for my trip in August. The Uzbekistan Airlines website feels like it was made in the 1990s, and whenever I try to book my flight and pay, the payment portal errors out. I’ve tried to contact and email them to book to no avail. It seems like a common problem.

In 2026, there’s really no excuses for this. A customer is trying to book directly with you to avoid paying agent fees and nothing seems to work. I had to settle and ultimately book with Expedia which went through seamlessly.

I know there are many startups looking to become an AI travel agent for you. I wonder when the product gets good enough that I can type in what I want, when I want it, and have it give me all the options with pros/cons. Maybe that exists and it’s time to start looking at these services.

Building in 2026

It’s been fun helping the product and engineering team with their roadmap for the upcoming months. A lot of the Secfi platform was built back in 2021/2022 and we are due for an update and a refresh.

Lots has changed in those last 4-5 years. What was once considered advance back then is now well a bit obsolete given the age of AI. I recall that the onboarding flow took us months to build out back in the day. With AI tools and agents, I can imagine that things should take mere weeks if not days.

Everything is being built at 10x the speed nowadays, but the same underlying problems will always plagued things. Garbage in, garbage out. Our data and tracking needs to be up to par in order for some of the new functionality to be built.

Again, in this day and age of AI, there’s not too many excuses anymore for taking that unstructured data and getting into structured format. AI is amazing at doing just that and eliminates the need for manual data entry for most part. There will be some sort team pain, but the automation and functionality that we can build will make everyone’s lives easier down stream.

How big will they get?

The World Cup has been a very fun kick-off to summer. We’re no strangers to tourists here in New York but seeing packs of visitors from various countries is really cool to see. The reaction on social media has seemed to be fairly positive as people from all over the globe come to visit the U.S. It’s a great reminder of how awesome we have it in this country. We’re not perfect by any means, but I firmly believe that despite our faults, this is the greatest country in the world.

On the work front, SpaceX announced that they are buying cursor after their successful IPO. The acquisition makes sense on many levels as SpaceX has compute and Cursor has distribution. In a world where models and capabilities are far outpacing the compute, it’s hard to see SpaceX not in a prime position to capitalize.

We are in a world of mega companies in the U.S. with the 10 largest companies representing almost 40% of the entire S&P. In a world of AI, how much bigger will these companies get as they possess the actual capital to get access to the compute in this AI war?

A special weekend

It was a special and rare weekend here in New York. The SpaceX IPO and the US Men’s National Team opening match in the World Cup kicked things off on Friday. It was an amazing performance by the team Friday night, and I couldn’t help be wonder whether we’ve turned a corner. The city was buzzing with energy heading into the weekend.

Of course, Saturday will forever be known as the Knicks’ day as they won the NBA Finals. The city was going nuts throughout the night and the videos are epic. Of course, I would have wanted to be out there despite not being a Knicks fan. These occasions are rare.

Alas, I was stuck at home being a Dad all weekend with Sophia out of town. Mild FOMO aside, I had a really special weekend with Colin. We had dim sum for lunch and then I took Colin to a block party down the street where he roamed around for hours playing with the fire hydrants and toys on the street. It was a very Brooklyn day that I never experienced as a kid and I loved watching him smiling ear to ear playing everywhere.

We spent most of Sunday at the park and playground. And then ended the weekend with a nice pool session and dinner together. Despite missing all the fun happening in the city, it was a special weekend for us.

The bonding and experience that we had together was something special that won’t be replicated. Watching him laugh and smile while we were playing in the pool together was something I’ll remember forever. Not everything about parenthood is great of course, but these times are a reminder of why it’s all worth it.

The big day

It’s SpaceX IPO day. I’m going to be fascinated to see what happens when the stock starts trading. I have a hard time not seeing the stock pop today. A lot of people’s net worth is about to jump significantly. Of course, the million dollar question is what happens afterwards. Every price movement in SPCX is going to be followed and talked about for at least the year.

The excitement continues into the evening as the World Cup for the US Men’s National Team kicks off. Here in New York, the excitement is definitely overshadowed by the Knicks’ finals run. It feels like Americans barely know that the World Cup is happening in North America this year.

That can all change quickly though. Americans love a good story and want something to root for. The US Men’s National Team has a chance to give the country just that. I wonder if the lack of pressure and attention may do wonders for the team. There is not a level of expectation that US is a contender by any means and most seem very content for us just to get out of the group.

Being an underdog on home soil is a great place to be.

The calm before the storm

I couldn’t sleep last night so I turned the Knicks game back on. Despite losing that extra hour and half of sleep, I’m glad that I did. It was an epic game that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I need to remind myself that I am indeed not a 70 year old that can’t stay up past 10pm at times and I do need to live a little. Can’t happen every night if I’m prioritizing my sleep and rest, but there’s ways to pick your battles.

Things are heating up literally and figuratively heading into this weekend. Tomorrow is the SpaceX IPO and it’s going to be one to watch. I don’t think there’s been a more anticipated IPO in the short history of the stock market. Everyone will be watching closely whether you’re rooting for SpaceX or not.

The World Cup starts tomorrow as well as the US takes on Paraguay. And of course, the Knicks go back to San Antonio on Saturday. The city will be mayhem if the Knicks can pull off the win. If not, Game 6 in New York on Tuesday is going to be absolute mayhem.

I’m excited for a fun summer here in New York. Sophia and I wanted to make sure to enjoy this year with a young toddler where things are starting to get a bit easier to live life a bit.

Priorities

It’s Knicks mania right now as the finals come back to MSG for Game 4. Monday was a crazy day in the city with the President attending the game and the entire city going crazy. I feel a little bit out of the loop as these games start at 8:30pm and I’ve been only making it to half-time. I feel like a bit of a loser and old, but ultimately my rest/sleep has been the priority as I learn to navigate being a father and working a demanding job. I’ve got to get my priorities right.

On the topic of priorities, my life this week has been one blur moving from meeting to interview. I’ve barely had time to sit down and be with my own thoughts for longer than a few minutes. This world works in funny ways and things always seem to get hectic at the end of each quarter without fail.

I’m excited about the work the team has put together this quarter and it’s an exciting time right now in the private markets. After these next 3 weeks are up, I need to remember to make sure we celebrate as a team as we’ve all been grinding things out.

No SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic in the S&P500

I suppose the public majority won out as the S&P 500 will not change their rules to include new mega cap IPO companies this year. There are good arguments for both sides here of course and I’m not necessarily sure which side of the argument I generally align with.

SpaceX will be one of the largest US based companies and if the goal is to own the top 500 companies, then not having SpaceX in there does go against the core idea. I understand the worry of a newly IPO’d company especially at a valuation that seems to be a bit lofty. With that said, if SpaceX stock does continue to do well in the next quarters and years, then the S&P500 holders will lose out.

Those arguments aside, I’d imagine a lot of the decision was at least partly based on the adverse feelings of Elon and AI in general. The public majority does not seem to have a positive response to AI right now. People are generally much more fearful of AI and the people running these companies than welcoming.

I understand their fears whether they are right or wrong. The ability to make a living and provide for your family is everyone’s top priority. No one wants to hear that their career or line of work is at jeopardy because of a new technology. As I’ve stated before, I do believe a lot of the fears are overblown and I generally lean towards an optimistic view of AI.

Elon, Dario, and Sam have a lot of work to do to overcome the public perception of their companies. It feels like the majority of the country will be rooting for their downfall rather than success.

Monday musings

Sophia and I got a baby sitter and went out for the first time together on Saturday. We did a 5pm dinner so we could take time after to just have some drinks and relax. It was funny thinking about how much our lives have changed. We had a fantastic dinner at 5pm alongside a lot of elderly folks. Things have changed a lot in the last few years and we’re at a different stage in life.

It was a much needed night out for us. We haven’t spent much time together just us two and we need to remember that it’s important for our marriage to continue dating and living our lives despite being parents as well.

On parenthood - I’m loving this stage of life with Colin right now. He seeks me out all day and just wants to explore the world. I’m more than content spending most of my weekends doing just that. With that said, things are undoubtedly a lot more exhausting. Even after a Friday night in at home, I woke up on Saturday and spent most of the morning counting down the hours to Colin’s nap so I could get some rest.

Life as a parent isn’t easy. It’s an adjustment on many levels, and I find myself constantly tweaking my life so I can stay happy and refreshed as much as I can. It’s a constant battle between balancing my social life, my health/workouts, and my role as a Dad. The consistent between my data is that I need to do a lot less in life and get more rest. That’s been my focus the last few months and will continue to be my focus this year as I get older and things get more tiring with Colin.

Let the games begin

SpaceX will make their public market debut next Friday in the biggest IPO in history. This will kick off a busy summer as Anthropic and OpenAI likely will follow behind unless the IPO completely flops.

The idea of “sell in May and go away” won’t apply for those of us who work in finance this year. I’m excited to see what happens, but also remain a bit worried on the overall market. Things feel fragile right now and I’ve seen things turn south quickly. Only time will tell how everything will go.

While I am looking forward to the events, I am also very much looking to taking some time off in July. It’s been a fun and busy quarter. We’re all feeling the burn right now and a little breather is going to be nice once the quarter is over. Of course, first comes what will likely be a crazy few weeks. I’ve got my popcorn ready.

Implementing changes

With technology changing so fast these days, we’ve been struggling to keep up with everything. We’ve been implementing AI in our day to day workflows and that has provided significant leverage in our days.

At the same time, we know the future will be dong it on an enterprise basis and built in our specific processes rather than each individual building their own tools in Claude. Building things out at a broader level requires a lot more work and planning, and of course resources.

With everything moving so fast, it’s hard for me to make the call to spend significant time right now building some of these things out. I question whether we spend time building something, and then shortly thereafter, realize that there’s a much better solution that comes out.

Most of the workflows that I was looking to automate just months ago have now been already built as a feature in our tools we already use. With that said, there’s a ton of stuff that’s proprietary to Secfi and our workflows that likely we’ll need something more of a custom solution. And that’s where we’re focusing right now.

Content

With AI, the amount of content out there is absolutely insane crazy. I’m a avid reader of newsletters and I usually keep a separate email label just for my newsletters that I try to get to on the trains, commutes, or downtime. That list has historically been large and I end up deleting most things, but at this point, the amount of newsletters that I now get are unmanageable.

My Instagram feed also now feels like half AI generated content. And I can’t stay away. I’ve gone back into the world of Game of Thrones and spend a lot of time consuming AI generated GoT content that is incredibly entertaining. As a mild fan, I don’t know how I’ve gotten here, but my Instagram has basically been a GoT.

At what point do we get a filter for AI generated versus real content on social media?

Anthropic files a S1

The news of the week is Anthropic filing their confidential S1. That completes the “3-headed monster” of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic each looking to go public at $1T+ valuations. The first of the three to hit the public markets is likely SpaceX later this month which will be fascinating to watch.

It’s hard not to see the SpaceX share price pop after the IPO given everything with the hype, limited float, index buying, etc. I can only imagine it’ll be a significant pop the first day and likely will stay elevated for a certain period. The only question mark for me is what happens in the months afterwards.

OpenAI and Anthropic are likely both in the wings also watching closely. Given the capital needs of both these frontier AI companies, it’s likely in both their best interest to hit the public markets sooner than later. Alongside the IPO lock-ups expiring will be an infusion of multi-millionaires unleashed primarily in San Francisco.

The city is already freakin’ out with “wealthy” folks unable to buy homes given that everything is going well over asking. Personally, this does likely put a dent in my plans to purchase home anytime soon in my hometown.

My stance is to stay even keeled about this. There will be more buying opportunities in the future and renting isn’t the worst thing and possibly even a better financial decision for a family like ours. The gold rush will eventually end and things will likely settle back down again. Whether that’s in 1, 2, or 5+ years, I don’t know but I have no desire to try to fight the market right now.

Monday musings

My college friends and I were joking in our group text this weekend about how much we miss the younger days of partying where we could eat and drink what we want for how long we wanted. The days of being out at a beach with your friends and some beers, and nothing to do is something we were all reminiscing about.

However, at this point, I’d wager that almost equally as great to that freedom may be just be waking up feeling refreshed and amazing. This morning I woke up a rested man and popped out of bed. I got a 92% sleep score which is the best in recent memory. My sleep debt was reduced to basically 0 for the first time in weeks.

I went on a medium strain run that Whoop suggested before work, and I’m writing this feeling spritely at 11:30am and excited for the day ahead. If I could only replicate this feeling every day, life would be a lot better. The big question is what’s preventing me from getting there which unfortunately is a bit more complicated.

Behind this great Monday was a nice lowkey weekend with the family. We did our best not to overstrain ourselves and spent most of the time simply within the neighborhood with Colin. On Friday, we went out to an early and quick dinner with Colin that was magical as he was a champ throughout the evening.

On Saturday, we played basketball in the park in the morning and then went to a music class at Fort Greene park. Then we let him run around until he was exhausted at the Park Slope block party. We stayed on brand and on Sunday, we spent most of the day at parks or around our building just letting Colin play.

It was a largely boring weekend for Sophia and I, but the reality is that in order to feel good and get that rest that I need, our lives need to be more boring. That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun or go out and do things for ourselves. But it’s becoming more obvious to me that overdoing things has been Sophia and my achilles heel.

Another benefit of trying to slow down… I’m starting to learn that playing with my son is getting a lot of more as he gets closer to 2 years old. He’s starting to understand me more and more, and it’s getting easier to play with him. Playing with him doesn’t mean just watching him play with his toys anymore. I’m really loving this phase and spending time with him as much as possible.

Learning about recovery through Whoop

It’s amazing how much I’ve learned about myself and my body in the few months I’ve had a Whoop. A big part of it is the AI that’s built in that makes things easy to digest. I didn’t think I’d find the information very useful, but I’ve become one of those people that’s a bit addicted to it which is a net benefit for me.

I love learning and when you add an aspect of learning to be healthier and feel better, it’s a no-brainer and think that everyone can benefit from the data that’s collected.

One of the big things that I’ve been incredibly frustrated with the last few years is that I don’t seem to be making much progress in terms of my fitness. That is I work out 4 times a week and live an active lifestyle, but I don’t see the numbers go up a meaningful amount. My run mileage and pace is getting slower. My lifting numbers are stagnating a bit. On top of that, I feel constantly sore and tired.

With a combination of Whoop and ChatGPT, I’ve come to the realization the last week that I am not gaining because my recovery is poor. Just as important as working out is making sure that I recover and build on that workout. I was doing the opposite.

My tendency has always been to push through. If I’m tired, I would often prioritize a workout. On top of that, my Whoop has let me know that I do too much on my runs resulting into a counter-productive workout.

I always figured going hard on my runs would be better to building my cardiovascular health. Turns out that I need to slow my heart rate down on these runs significantly in order to actually build that health. I was not building a good foundation for gains.

My philosophy with my workout has changed and I need to trust the data and focus on recovery. My Whoop has now become my fitness coach and I love having it.

Learning from our kids

We had dinner with some old friends that were in town last night. It was a real nice night out eating great food and just relaxing which is rare for us on a Wednesday nowadays especially with Colin. Our friends also have a young toddler and naturally our conversation centered around our kids and our experience the last year and half.

My friend’s wife is an impressive founder who I’ve always known to be very introspective. She mentioned one of the biggest learnings for her as a new parent is just how fearless her daughter is and how as adults we live life naturally very fearful. She drew on her experiences a founder being worried about everything and just scared of making a mistake, and vowed to try to live life more fearless like her daughter.

It was an insightful thought and had me thinking throughout the night and this morning. She’s absolutely right and I can see how I’ve started to live life a bit more cautious than perhaps I did even a few years ago. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the stakes are much higher and that has made me perhaps a bit more hesitant and fearful of the outcomes.

Simply put, I’m more worried about making a mistake now than I was 5 years ago at Secfi. It’s perhaps time to change my mindset a bit. Great companies are not built by people who live life fearfully and hesitant. They say you learn a lot more from you kids than you teach them. It’s good for me to realize that and learn from Colin.

Protecting my blocks to learn AI

My list of videos and articles of the latest trends in AI is now surpassing 4+ hours worth of time. I’ve definitely got a bit of anxiety that I’m being left behind in this world. I suspect I’m one of many with how fast things are moving.

As someone who loves learning and playing with new tools, it’s incredibly frustrating that I don’t have much time between work and my family to sit down and play with the latest technology.

I’ve done an okay job carving out time at work the last couple of months to learn the tools, but it’s clearly not enough and my previous blocks almost always get taken up with more pressing work matters.

I think the good news with how fast everything is moving is that everything I want seems to be getting built for me and added as features in my day to day tools. For example, I was planning on building a morning briefing in Claude that research every meeting I have for the day. Low and behold, Granola just launched a feature that already has this built in and scans my inbox, Slack, and Hubspot. So that’s one less thing for me to build.

Regardless, I need to protect my blocks and really spend time on learning. In this day and age, there’s really no excuse not to.

A long weekend

It was a “long” long weekend in New York. Sophia and I decided to just stay home to try to relax and enjoy New York this Memorial Day. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and we basically had rain the entire weekend. This normally wouldn’t bother me much, but with an active toddler, life was a lot more stressful.

We tried to make the best of it by going to a mall on Saturday which ended up backfiring and being an awful experience with Colin wanting to basically run around the entire time.

Our evening to ourselves on Sunday was canceled as we made a mistake and forgot to confirm the baby sitter. I did have a nice day on Friday golfing in the morning and hanging out. But besides that, I was pretty exhausted chasing Colin around and trying to keep him entertained indoors.

It was a good learning experience for Sophia and I. When these weekends happen, it’s quite obvious that less is more. We unfortunately did quite the opposite of that. After our debacle on Sunday, we tried to salvage the night by going out with Colin which just exhausted us even more. It was a long Monday and my Whoop recovery score was in the red most of the weekend.

My focus this week and weekend will be about getting back on track.