A Return To Eastern Time
For the past few months, I’ve been living and posting from the west coast, as has become our routine during the winter months. Regular readers have likely noticed that new posts show up around 9am/10am ET instead of 6am/7am ET. This will be the last post from the west coast this winter as we are returning home to NYC this afternoon.
I am not entirely sure how I’m going to get a blog post in tomorrow morning as we arrive late and I’ve got an early breakfast, but I always seem to find a way. It certainly will have to be posted by 7:30am ET before I start my day. Maybe I will write it on the plane home this evening.
The winter out west routine works really well for me. It gets me away from the hustle and bustle of NYC and in a bit more reflective and relaxed mood. It’s not a vacation. I work ten hour days, but I start them at 5am and end them mid/late afternoon, in time for a bike ride or a late afternoon yoga class.
I am going to miss all of our friends and family in LA and the incredible weather, vegetation, sights, and smells. Here’s a photo I took from a sunset walk on the bluff with my friend Mark last week.
I will miss this place, but I’m also eager to get back to the big apple.
Comments (Archived):
Gorgeous pic. Safe travels back
Great picture. CA rocks for the weather, the hiking and the bio-diversity.NYC rules for a better Chinatown, Guggenheim+MOMA, flea markets and food.
It’s not a vacation. I work ten hour daysThis reminds me of my need years ago for my parents to know that I was working most of the time and not goofing off or relaxing. I would call them when I left the office late (and I mean late) as if to say “see I am working hard just like you raised me to do”.Most recently my mom was upset that I didn’t attend or do something with her … don’t remember. I told her jokingly ‘hey that is how you raised me … it’s your fault that work and school was so important that it takes precedence over everything…’! She laughed and immediately accepted that. (Gotta hit the hot buttons, eh?)It’s interesting that you say ‘a bit more relaxed’. To me that indicates that you feel a small amount of guilt not being in the mix in NYC or not at the NYC office. Total speculation (I have typically been wrong in the past when I’ve speculated like that about you..)
My Mom just shows up at random times and thinks I can just leave my office — because I work from home — and have coffee with her because I’m self-employed. She has no idea. I almost always make her leave and tell her to call to schedule an appointment with me next time. She never does though.
My mother has long since passed, but I know the feeling. I work in an office and since I own it people think they can just show up and use whatever they want. I have to explain no, this is my office, I can’t inflict that on my employees My wife is the worst offender 🙂
just show up and use whatever they wantWhat do you mean? Like ‘can I use your fax machine’ or ‘can I use your color printer’?
It’s my playhouse. We have arcades, bowling, dedicated soda fridge, beer fridge, regular fridge, ice maker, 3 awesome conference rooms of different sizes from 6 to 12 to 24 people with 60 inch 4d (I think that’s what they are) TVs. Massively fast internet, a guest printer. You want to hold a meeting for 24 people? You can setup board room style or classroom style, individual climate control wireless video.It’s literally cheaper to fly people from MN to meet at my office because the airfare and hotel is offset by the lack of other costs.
Mary, an elderly neighbor no longer with us, would show up on my doorstep in the middle of the work day. Not sure she ever realized that I wasn’t the woman who lived here years before, but we’d have tea.
Kudos to you for setting boundaries!When my dad was alive he used to complain that I only called him when I was in the car or exercising. As if I should be calling him when I was at work or occupied doing something else.Back at my first business my dad would always drop in randomly out of nowhere. Later when I started another business I expected the same but he never stopped by at all. Ever. I finally figured out he was there to use the bathroom because he was always in the same neighborhood (he owned a few properties and would go down to check them out or pretend to).
Congrats on your top ten placement in the Times top VCs today.
I don’t know how they come up with that stuff. My four partners are equally responsible for our success and have helped founders build many great companies. I appreciate your congratulations but I really struggle with stuff like this
Top tier VC problems.
You let them know that as soon as it happens. You know the media never wants a story for some reason here is a team success, that these people have been working on for a decade. I’ve said this before. They want to spotlight a person.
One day you will have to acknowledge your stardom in the VC space. People who follow you knows that you are beside excellent partners and team at USV. Of course at home too.The thing is that you are more visible. Maybe it is the payoff of the daily post exercise, or the character, or being more extrovert than your partners, who knows. But the net result is increased visibility, and that is good for USV as USV is good for you.I know that it is a family thing, but moving with the seasons from coast to coast won’t help to weaken your stardom either. This is what stars do. :)Welcome back to the time zone.
Any summary or hypothesis on the LA market? Both a standalone and relative to NY, SF, Toronto, Boston and other places you might frequent.
It’s as good of a second tier market as anywhere else. You mentioned many of them but Seattle has to be on the list too
Both coasts are good. When on East, you miss the West, and when on the West, you miss the East. At least, that applies to me.
Me too
I miss walking over Brooklyn Bridge.But then again … in SF … my hikes give me this …https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
problem w/ GG and SF: that spot is just as likely to be fogged in, as not (well, much moreso on the other end of that bridge).Advantage w/ Brooklyn Bridge is it’s reliably very hot, or very cold, depending on which month you choose. I actually preferred NYC weather once i moved there from SF (and as long as i took off for winters, as Fred now does).
True but the fog adds a mystique to SF. Plus it would be boring if it was relentlessly sunny. The weather helps us to FEEL different moods and that can be a great thing!One morning I woke up in Carroll Gardens (that’s the patch of NY I love) and the garden was 10-12 inches of snow. The squirrels in the tree had run onto our fire escape because the house eaves were an umbrella against the snowfall — LOL.I love bridges over big expanses of water generally because it’s a reminder of how humans are ingenuous and can harness and overcome the natural elements with design+engineering.
Beautiful. I live in inland Santiago and always long to escape near the sea that is some 120 km away. We have an old port city, Valparaiso that had its times of glory before the construction of the Panama channel when it was an obliged stop port for vessels coming from the Atlantic through cape Horn. Now it is struck by poverty, specially uphill but some areas still show the city glorious past.Port cities have a special character, I guess this stems from the fact that these cities were the hubs of maritime commerce and a point of contact between cultures. Most still are.And the air.. a luxury of cities by the sea.
Wow, I had no idea you’re in Chile!Some of the best travel experiences are to castle compounds by ports, e.g. Alghero in Sardinia or Marseilles. Again, my mind goes straight to how clever people have always been.There was a documentary about how the UK spread the Industrial Revolution around the world via maritime commerce, including with things like Wedgwood pottery!
Yes, born and raised in Chile, but must admit that I am in love with NYC. I am still working to connect my startup activities here and there in spite of the recent political uncertainty.The British had a lot of influence in this country and South America during the first half of the 20th century. Railways, commerce, mining, finance. My father and grandfather were a modest part of that. And look where they are today, breaking up with the EU isolating themselves.
The British oscillate between angst about “Imperialism (we brought engineering and enlightenment to 1/4 of the world (up to 570 million people) ” and “We’re a sovereign island.” For a small country, the U.K. has produced an excess of brilliant scientists, writers, Olympians, the Industrial Revolution, common law and lots of other great things.The people who voted for Brexit were tired of European directives and bureaucrats on Human Rights and Immigration and losing the UK’s ability to self-determine those laws.
Welcome home
Thanks
welcome back fred!see ya on the bike path I”m sure this spring.
Thanks
Welcome back!
Thanks
Looks great, I think winters in LA and rest of the time in NYC would be damn near perfect for me.
Is New York City in the wrong place?
“When it’s 32º in New York, it’s 78º in Los Angeles. When it’s 102º in New York, it’s 78º in Los Angeles. There are about two million interesting people in New York — and 78 in Los Angeles.” — Neil Simon