Product designer. Angel investor in @Coinbase @Linear @Expo @BeOnDeck @Hodinkee @Envoy @Yumi @XMTP_ @SoSimplified @Switchyards & 100+ more
May 12, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The Dark Knight Rises is by far the best of the Nolan trilogy, and the most slept on
“This is a leap to freedom. It’s not about strength.”
May 12, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
I’ve had a lot of privilege in my life. The son of a Congressman: I grew up wandering the tunnels of the Capitol. I know that place like the back of my hand
But for all the privilege: there was pain too. I wouldn’t say I had a happy childhood—even though it was a lucky one
Being me was a double-edged sword:
On one side privileged advantage
The other: the accusation that everything is because of who your dad is
As a result I’ve rejected nearly every bit of help my father has ever offered me
I had to be my own man.
May 11, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Alright. I’ve lost a lot of money lately, so let’s talk about multiple-compression
It’s why I lost money and how you might too
Coming off Q1, Coinbase was looking solid. 5X P/E ratio, as good as it gets in this business
May 11, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
So the Mega-Duck is dead.
She popped.
This might be a signal that this economic cycle is over 😭
RIP Mega-Duck
You were the best random Amazon purchase I ever added to my cart 😭
May 10, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Financial crashes are a big part of my family history
My great, great grandmother was married to an incredibly wealthy man in Riga: before it was consumed by the Soviet Union and eventually became Latvia
The Weimar Republic Hyperinflation crisis
They went from being an incredibly wealthy family to being lower-middle class.
My great-great grandmother’s son was insistent that she take her money out of paper German marks and put it into Gold marks. She refused
May 3, 2022 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
Okay, I’m attempting to annoy everyone, by saying obvious political truths across both sides of the spectrum. Here goes:
Immigration is a good thing. We have a declining birth rate below replacement level, so we need more people. But they should be high-skilled
Sep 12, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Worthless NFT number four is now available!
After discussions with our previous buyers, we're dropping the price to 0.1 ETH. A bargain!
As these incredibly worthless NFTs sell we'll post updated listings in this thread. And again: all proceeds to charity opensea.io/assets/0x495f9…
Four = SOLD!
I’ll just come out and say it: I don’t get NFTs. I don’t understand the JPEGs.
If anyone should get them it should be me. I was early to Bitcoin, a pre-sale buyer of Ethereum, a Coinbase seed investor, early Solana…
And I don’t get it. It feels like the emperor has no clothes.
I have no doubt that NFTs will evolve into something exciting.
But I think the prospect of buying into the 1000th derivative art project copying crypto punks isn’t interesting whatsoever.
Digital ownership is exciting. But most of these art NFTs are going to zero
Jul 21, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The economics of successful angel investors are very under-celebrated in VC circles, as opposed to the economics of non-top-fund-GPs—which are questionable.
Here's the math:
Consider a hypothetical series A, led by a GP with 4 other partners, paying a 5X markup on the seed round:
Apr 29, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1/ I said this many years ago, and was roundly mocked for it. But I still believe it so I’ll say it again:
In crypto, speculation is the boot-loader for utility.
2/ Speculation creates demand for discovering specific use-cases within the open possibility space of crypto platforms.
It’s artificial demand at first, but demand nonetheless. A “bounty” for discovering legitimate use-cases amongst the noise.
Oct 22, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
0/ My thoughts for picking at seed & pre-seed. Mental models & thought experiments:
(I rarely post stuff like this — but put some thought into these recently and would love feedback 😇)
1/ Be thesis-agnostic
By the time a narrow thesis is formulated, it’s generally too late for seed investors. No fund had a crypto thesis when I invested in Coinbase in 2013.
