Musings of a VC in NYC

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all mothers out there. I am particularly grateful to the two mothers in my life, my mom and the Gotham Gal.

I looked at the mirror the other day and saw my mom in my face. I like that. She is a beatiful woman and if I age as well as she has, then I will be a lucky man. I am looking forward to calling her today and catching up on things as we do most every sunday.

We were at dinner last night with a young couple. The young man asked me when we started having children. I told him that the Gotham Gal insisted we have kids before we turned thirty. And so we did.

Jessica was born when we were 29. I am not sure that I was ready to be a father but Joanne was ready to be a mother and so we went for it. She has been an incredible mother to our kids and in many ways to me too.

Mothering is something we all need and thank god for all the mothers out there who provide it to us day in and day out. Today is your day. I hope it is a great one.

Fun Friday: What Would You Use A Drone For?

In my talk yesterday at Princeton, we got to discussing drones. A young woman asked me what I would use a drone for.

My answer was dry cleaning runs. I want to hand my drone the week's dry cleaning, have the drone fly over to sixth ave and 10th street where our dry cleaner is, drop off the clothes and then return home. When the dry cleaning is ready to pick up, the drone would fly back, get it, and bring it back home.

Of course, if everyone did this, the skies in NYC would be so filled with drones that we wouldn't be able to see the sun. That doesn't feel so great to be honest.

What would you use a drone for?

The Boston Marathon Bombing

I don't have a lot to say about what happened in Boston yesterday. But I do want to acknowledge it.

I agree that we should keep calm and carry on. After 9/11, the Gotham Gal made our family get on the subway, go out and about, and not let terror impact our way of life. That was the right call for our family.

But before I carry on, I want to make sure that I, and all of you, have the opportunity to talk about the senseless losses and violence that occurred. It is tragic and terrible.

Fun Friday: Favorite Brands

Yesterday's rant in the comments on HBO vs Netflix and Apple vs Google gave me the idea of a fun friday on brands we love (or hate). Since Kirk tells me I hate too much, I will keep my comments to brands I love. But I am not opposed to hating in the comments. In fact, I think it is fun if it is done respectfully. Sometimes our comment threads here are too nice. And too nice is too boring.

Here are a few brands that I love.

Blue Bottle Coffee

 

Twitter

 

Doyle Mueser

 

Tell us about the brands you love in the comments.

 

Home

The 5am routine is back! I am writing this from my home office. We slept at home last night. Ten weeks in hotels is over. Thank god.

It's hard to feel sorry for yourself when you are staying in nice hotels when others who were displaced from Sandy are in much worse situations. But being out of your home for a long period of time sucks no matter where you are staying.

Here's what I missed the most:

1) home cooked meals from the Gotham Gal. We got one last night. It was the best meal I've eaten in months and we have dined at some of the finest restaurants in the world in the past two months.

2) saying goodnight and good morning to my kids every day. having kids staying in hotel rooms on different floors is a family disconnect of major proportions. i hated it.

3) my closet. living out of a suitcase for 10 weeks is ridiculous.

4) the Gotham Gal's smile. the past ten weeks has been harder on her than anyone else.

5) my office. it's my sanctuary. it is the only place that is entirely mine. where i can go and think and write. i'm here now. it feels like an old friend who has been away for a while.

Anyway, I'm hoping that having the routine back will lead to a burst of creativity and output. I can say for sure that I struggled mightily to keep it going the past 10 weeks.

Merry Christmas Everyone

It's mid afternoon on the east coast as I write this. The time difference between Tokyo and NYC means I am eary or late to most things this week.

Christmas isn't much of a thing in Tokyo so I am mostly getting my holiday cheer from Tumblr and Instagram. Though our family hasn't celebrated Christmas at home in over a decade, I still miss it. We did celebrate it with the Gotham Gal's family last year in Utah which was nice.

Christmas to me is family time. And our family has made it a tradition to go away somewhere far away for two weeks every Christmas for the past decade. So like most families, we have amazing Christmas memories. But ours don't include Christmas trees, holiday music, opening gifts, and family feasts these days.

So I'd like to wish my family and friends and all of you a merry christmas. I hope you are able to spend it with loved ones.

With that I am signing off so I can grab a livestream of the Lakers Knicks game. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you can watch the NBA anywhere in the world these days.

The Flow and The Balance

No this is not a post about yoga, although I am really looking forward to my yoga class this morning. It's about the two concepts in finance that I think are most important for folks to understand.

The Gotham Gal and I went out to dinner with our oldest child Jessica last night. We got into a deep discussion of personal finance and how to manage it. I was talking about the difference between how much you make and spend and how much you have in the bank. I wanted to talk about the P&L and the Balance Sheet but I did not want to use those business concepts. So I called them the flow and the balance.

The flow is how much you make and how much you spend. It is the flow of money in and out of your bank account each day, week, month, year, etc. The balance is how much money you have in the bank (or any other form of account where you can have money on deposit).

We talked about how you could have a balance of $10,000 and because your flow is negative (you spend more than you make), that balance could go to zero over time. And we talked about how you could start with a balance of zero and because your flow is positive (you save money each month), your balance could grow to $10,000 over time.

As we were talking, I was reminded that unless you major in economics or finance, high school and college doesn't prepare you for the world of personal finance. Jessica has most of the tools she needs to manage her finances and she has been doing it for a while because we make our children responsible for their spending as they become young adults. And yet, she found this distinction between flow and balance helpful to understand as she prepares to get out of college and take even more control of her personal finances.

The generation that my kids belong to will have some incredible tools as they start to take control of their own finances. Online banking and web and mobile based personal finance tools that take advantage of the portability of your personal finance data are evolving at a fast and furious rate. But to use these tools, you need to understand and make sense of the data. I think simplifying and demystifying these concepts and this data is key. And I wish that there were more educational resources available to young adults as they enter the working world to help them with this stuff. It's important.

Giving Thanks

As is my tradition on this day every year, I just want to say thanks to everyone who makes my life what it is.

- My family led by the incredible Gotham Gal, who as JLM would say, "never met a to do list she couldn't master".

- My work. I get to work in a true partnership where everyone has a say and uses it regularly. Brad and I created the firm we wanted to work in and it is such a joy to be able to do that.

- Entrepreneurs are special people. I spend my days with them, they challenge me, they enrich me, and they entertain me.

- The AVC community. I write every day because you read every day. Thanks.

- My extracurricular activities - The list grows longer by the day but that is because there is so much I want to do and not so much time to do it in.

I live an incredibly rewarding, exciting, and enriching life. And I am very thankful for it.

Fun Friday: Who To Follow On Twitter

This fun friday topic was suggested by a community member in the comments sometime in the past week. I like the idea so today we will all share good Twitter follows with each other.

I'll share a few of the best twitterers I know of with all of you and then you can take it from there.

Sports: Bill Simmons

Politics: John Heilemann

Tech: Anil Dash

Finance (& Comedy): Howard Lindzon

Fashion/Culture: Alexa Chung

Music: Bob Lefsetz

When you share twitter handles in the comments section, please link to them so the follow is easy on everyone. Thanks.

Turning 17 For The Third Time

Tomorrow I turn 51. I like to think of it as turning 17 for the third time.

The first 17 years of my life was my childhood. I'd like to thank my parents for everything they did for me, taught me, and provided for me in those years.

The next 17 years of my life was figuring out how to be an adult. The Gotham Gal, whom I met when I was 19, helped me to figure that out.

The next 17 years were about figuring out how to be a good husband, parent, and venture capitalist. The skills for all three are largely the same. Being there, caring, supporting, listening, constructively criticising, and above all being present in the relationship. I'm still working on those skills and I suppose I will for the rest of my life.

Now I'm on to the next 17 years. I'm not sure what they will bring. But I am sure that it will be fun, interesting, rewarding, thrilling and challenging. I'm looking forward to them.