This weeks commentary with “Weekend Reads and Listens” is a little longer so I am putting it on the bottom of my list of content I consumed this week. Hope you have a good week!
Reads 🤓:
- The Bubble Brains of Silicone Valley: Kyle Harrison
- Surviving the Death of Venture Capital: Kyle Harrison
- Investors See Interest Rates Cutting Soon- Recession or Not: WSJ
- Hot Healthcare Hiring Bolsters Cooling U.S. Labor Market: WSJ
- Classical liberals are increasingly religious: Tyler Cowen
- SaaSletter – Coatue on AI -> SaaS Read Throughs – Matt Harney
Listens🎙:
Books 📖:
My family and I have officially been residing in the beautiful city of Carlsbad, California for about a week now. I understand if some of you were taken aback by our sudden move, considering we made the decision in just a week’s time. The most obvious response to us telling people this is “Why!?!?”
There are some existential reasons as well as practical. I will do my best to summarize clearly for those that care.
Summer in Arizona sucks and it is getting worse. I normally wouldn’t care about the weather much as we had this place in Carlsbad and used it in the summers to get away. The problem is that our four month hiatus from the heat was going to be drastically shrunk to two months when my oldest daughter Sophia goes into kindergarten. From what I hear from parents that two months eventually gets shrunk down to one month when the kids get old enough for sports, clubs, friends etc.
There is a lie that Arizonians say which is “we have perfect weather 9-months out of the year.” That is a false statement. Anything about 90 degrees is not perfect weather in my definition. You are in 90+ degrees for 5-months out of the year. There is not a person on the planet that can argue that San Diego has a perfect climate. If we have one life to live on this earth I would say spending time in the best geography matters.
The second reason of moving is one of wanting to simplify our life a little more. In Arizona we bought a big beautiful house in neighborhood called Arcadia. I really loved the house but after the new shine wore off I quickly saw how wasteful we had become. We had accumulated so much stuff it was sickening. I wanted to simplify our life dramatically and going from 5,000 sqft to 2,200 sqft was a drastic way to do it.
The third reason of the move is that I felt like it was the next logistical move career wise. I feel that the network is very dense in Arizona and that it is a great place to start a career in investing although it was not an optimal place to grow. I believe your network is only as good as your networks network. In San Diego there are direct lines into Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco where there are better opportunities for capital formation and sourcing.
When I shared this with my network in Arizona, 80% of the people responded positively, saying it was a smart move and expressing their love for California. The remaining 20% had a visceral reaction, complaining about taxes and far-left policies. While those may be significant issues in California, I consider them small prices to pay for the enhanced quality of life. In summary, relocating to California was an unequivocal decision for our family, encompassing every aspect of our being.
If your in southern California please reach out- david@dwpcapital.com
