I am old enough to have made many venture capital mistakes and to see good luck occasionally bounce my way. One thing I’ve learned throughout is this: what are the smartest technical people with the highest opportunity costs most excited about? VC is notorious for hyping up trends since firms are paid a lot of
Category: Economics
Silicon Valley Bank and the Aftermath
Geez. Where is the floor? #svb at $60 one hour ago pic.twitter.com/6qOBTu2BSW — Jo Tango (@jtangoVC) March 10, 2023 SVB. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is something I am still processing, honestly. I know many good people at the bank and, a long time ago, served on one of their Advisory Boards. It was
Beta and What’s Next
In finance, there’s a fundamental concept called “beta.” It’s a measure of relative risk, specifically, how risky a security is vs. the rest of the market. A beta of 1.0 means that a security has the equivalent pricing volatility of the stock market as a whole. A beta greater than 1.0 means that it is
The Roaring ’20s
Through my VC work, research at HBS, and our family’s angel investing program, we get a lot of updates from many entrepreneurs in many sectors. What I concluded last month is this: it is game on with the economy. Various founders report that their sales cycles have accelerated, and this cuts across multiple sectors: digital
The Fear Gauge
One of the benefits of being older (and, on some days, feeling old) is that I’ve seen a few market cycles: the 1987 crash, the first Gulf War in 1990, the dot-com bubble and crash, 9/11, and the 2008 Great Recession. When these market dislocations happen, I get concerned. But, I don’t panic. Financially, I
Andrew Yang and Universal Basic Income
We have a large rainstorm blowing through the area all day. So, it is a great time to simmer an all-day pasta sauce, exercise and read. One book I recently read and enjoyed is Andrew Yang’s The War on Normal People. Here is how the book starts: “I am writing from inside the tech bubble to