Posts from Blogging On The Road

Coming Back Up For Air

The last time I posted was May 23rd, three weeks ago.

There was a time when I wrote every day. When I had not yet posted on any day, I felt like something was missing, like I had not yet had my cup of coffee.

Clearly, I have moved on from that need to write every day.

I don’t think I have ever gone three weeks without posting in the almost twenty years I’ve been writing this blog. The 20th anniversary of AVC will be on September 23rd of this year.

So why did I go three weeks without posting?

First and foremost, I did not feel like writing.

There are reasons for that.

The last week of May was completely nuts with a ton of stuff coming at me, some planned like a move out of our family office, some expected like a family medical situation, and some completely unexpected. That week was nuts.

And then on the evening of May 31st, the Gotham Gal and I got on an overnight flight to Paris and took a long-planned two-week vacation in a city we’ve been going to for decades to rest, relax, reconnect, and enjoy Paris and each other.

I’ve always tended to write on vacation but on this vacation, I read.

I may write about what I read this vacation. Or maybe I won’t. But it was not about business, tech, or anything that I tend to write about here. I wanted to get out of that zone and take on some new territory. And I am glad I did.

I worked a bit on vacation. I always do. The VC business is about supporting people, teams, and companies. You can’t really take a vacation from that.

But you can cut back a lot on that and I did.

I also slept a lot. In Eruope, if you try to stay on NYC time, you can go to bed late at night and get up when it is almost noon. There is something decadent about that. Like going back to high school and college when there wasn’t always something waiting for you when you woke up. I also took a lot of naps.

We also walked a lot, rode bikes around town, and spent time wandering around a city we know well and love to explore.

It was a great break, one I needed, and I am mostly happy to be heading home. I am writing this on the flight back.

I don’t know if I will jump right back into writing once or twice a week but I hope so.

I like writing. It brings things out of me that I did not know I had. I don’t know any other way to get those things out of my brain and out into the open.

So hopefully you will see some new stuff from me next week. What it will be I have no clue. But I have never planned out my writing. I like to let it flow out of me in the moment.

In closing, I’d like to address this tweet from Liad, a longtime AVC reader:

I understand that a daily dose of anything is a great thing. I love my daily flat white (cortado in the summer).

But these are not dark times we are in. And I am not writing less because of a lack of excitement for the times we are in.

The combination of computer science advances in machine learning, decentralized systems (blockchains), and new forms of interacting with compute (chat interfaces, heads up displays, voice, etc) presents the most potent cocktail of innovation I have ever seen. We are also seeing amazing scientific advances in areas like renewable/clean energy, health and wellness (biotech), robotics, and many other areas.

These are bright times. As bright as they come.

I will try to write more often and shine a bright light on these things.

#Blogging On The Road

Two Weeks In Paris

The Gotham Gal and I just spent the last two weeks in Paris. We have been going to Paris together for around forty years and have had a place there for the last decade. It is a place we can go to get away from it all for a few weeks, connect with each other, and enjoy ourselves in a city we love.

I’ve thought a lot about why Paris works so well for us to dial it down a bit and focus more on each other for a while. The time zone is a big part of it. The US doesn’t wake up and start working until early afternoon in Paris so our mornings and lunchtime are all our own. We sleep way later than we sleep anywhere else and stay up later too. The coffee shops I like don’t open until 9am or later so that’s an added incentive to stay in bed a bit longer.

We do find time to work when we are in Paris, but it is generally from mid/late afternoon until dinner time. So the time we work goes down considerably but not to zero and the time together goes up a lot.

Add to that our love of walking through cities and neighborhoods. We do a ton of that in NYC and will walk to and from dinner most of the time in NYC. But walking in Paris is next-level walking. The avenues are wider, the buildings are lower, the light is better, and the architecture fills the streets with beauty. We walk between 10,000 and 20,000 steps every day we are in Paris except for full rainouts, of which we had one on this trip.

And then there is the culture. The museums, the galleries, the nightlife, the restaurants, the stores. You can get all of that in NYC or London or a number of other great cities in the world, but Paris does it so well.

Our stays in Paris are basically less work, more sleep, more culture, more walking, and more fun together. It’s a formula we found many years ago and has never failed us over the years.

On this trip, there were some new things and observations that I thought I’d mention.

1/ Pedal assist bikes and bike lanes: I’ve been doing Velib bikes in Paris since they launched in 2007/2008. I wrote about them back then. But over the last few years, Paris has really upped its bike game. They have cut down lanes for cars and replaced them with bike lanes. They have allowed competitors to Velib in the market and now I have three bike apps on my phone, Velib, Dott, and Lime. The Gotham Gal and I were able to find pedal-assist e-bikes whenever we wanted them with no trouble. Our favorite was Lime which was the most available and their new Gen4 bikes are really good. On Thursday, when we wanted to go to the Paris Photo Show in the 7th, there was a strike on the Metro and so we biked forty minutes, mostly along the River Seine, to the show. It was fabulous. NYC should allow competitors to come into the market and compete with Citibike. When it comes to pedal-assist e-bikes, I think the more options the better. And the way Paris manages the parking spots for the Lime and Dott bikes works pretty well and suggests that the kiosk model that Citibike and Velib use may not be ideal.

2/ English spoken everywhere: Well maybe not everywhere. But over the last decade, since we got our first place in Paris, the number of people we encounter whose English is worse than our French has basically gone to zero. I don’t feel great about my poor french, which gets better over the course of two weeks but is not conversational in the least. But I do feel great about being able to communicate with whomever we need to while we are in Paris.

3/ More and more American ex-pats are living in Paris. Or maybe it’s that we know more American ex-pats living in Paris. Some of them came a decade ago. More came in the wake of the changing political dynamic in the US in the last five years. And the Pandemic brought even more. I did think a few times, “maybe we should join them” but we are not ready to give up the lives we have built in the US over the last forty years. But I do understand why so many US citizens are making Paris their home. It’s a very livable city. And with the dollar so strong, an American income goes a long way in Paris these days. And socialism, which is a scary word to many in the US, seems to work quite well in France. There is a safety net. There are fewer homeless on the streets and there is a sense that people in need are better taken care of in Paris. I don’t know that to be true, but that’s the feeling I get walking around the city for a few weeks.

4/ Property values and rents are more stable: Having bought a couple of apartments in Paris over the last decade, we have come to understand that the real estate markets work a bit differently in France. If an apartment is offered at a price, and you meet that price, the apartment comes off the market for a month while you decide if you absolutely want to buy it. There are no bidding wars as a result. There may be other factors at work as well, but we got the sense that the real estate markets, both purchasing and renting, are moderated in Paris in a way that is absolutely not the case in NYC. We own a lot of property in NYC and have benefitted from increases in the value of our real estate but we feel like those gains came at a great cost, which is that NYC, particularly Manhattan, has become so expensive to own and rent that many stores cannot make it anymore. It’s hard to find a shopping street in Manhattan that doesn’t have multiple vacant stores. We saw very little of that in Paris. And many restaurants we love have remained in the same spaces for over a decade. Again, we don’t know the details of how and why this is, but it is noticeably different and it seems like the model is working in Paris. The streets are alive and vibrant in a way that NYC streets are not right now.

We returned home yesterday having spent a wonderful two weeks together, reconnecting in lots of ways, and with new memories and new adventures under our belt.

I highly recommend that couples find a time and place that they can go unwind and reconnect. For us it is Paris. But it can be almost anywhere that allows you to cut back on work, spend more time with your loved one, and refresh and recharge. It has been working great for us for many years and the longer we do it, the better it gets.

#Blogging On The Road#life lessons

The Range Anxiety Weekend

Electrified cars were greater than 10% of the US market in 2021 and EVs were about 5%. EV sales are growing at nearly 100% YOY and could reach 25% of the US market in a few years. This is good news for the effort to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. But there are still challenges for the EV market.

Range anxiety and charge times are among the top reasons that consumers avoid EVs.

The Gotham Gal and I have owned EVs for eight years now and have struggled with a few of these issues. But we continue to buy EVs and prefer them to gas-powered cars.

This past weekend, we took a five-hour road trip with our brother and sister-in-law. We each drove our own cars, both EVs. We drove our eight-year-old original Tesla Model S. They drove a Volvo XC40. We ran into a number of challenges that led us to call this road trip our “range anxiety weekend.”

The first issue that arose is that our destination was slightly beyond the range of both of our cars. We needed about 250-260 miles to get to our destination and we both had about 240 miles of range. So we selected a stop for lunch that had EV charging stations.

Fortunately, when we arrived for lunch, both charging stations were free. They were the only charging stations that we could find in this small town. If either had been taken, we would not have been able to charge during lunch and would have had to go on a charging station hunt after lunch.

We had a leisurely two-hour lunch and when we got back to our cars, we had each gotten another forty miles. That was enough to get to our destination so off we went. We did get to our destination with some spare battery but both of us were below twenty miles when we arrived.

The hotel we stayed out told us they had EV charging stations, but it turns out what they had were two Tesla charging stations and we could not find an adapter to charge the Volvo XC40 on the Tesla charger. So the Gotham Gal and I charged our Tesla both nights at the hotel but our brother and sister-in-law were not able to do that.

The next morning we went on an EV charging station hunt and found an Electrify America fast-charging station which took the Volvo XC 40 from empty to full in about two hours. We left that car charging for most of the day and toured the area in our Tesla.

We charged our Tesla again overnight at our hotel and we both had full batteries for the drive back. We picked another lunch destination halfway home that had charging stations and started the trip back.

While the lunch destination on the way home did have both Tesla and non-Telsa chargers, the charging rate was so slow on them that we were not able to get enough additional mileage over lunch to make it home. So the Gotham Gal and I headed to a Telsa Supercharging Station and in about ten minutes got another fifty miles and then made our way home.

Our brother and sister-in-law had to find a fast charger in town and did but it was not easy. And it took a fair bit longer for them to get the extra fifty miles they needed to get home. But get home they did and the range anxiety weekend ended without any major issues.

But here is what we learned from this trip about the availability of charging stations on the road in California:

  • When hotels and restaurants say they have EV chargers, they mostly mean Tesla proprietary charging stations that you need an adapter to use if you are driving something other than a Tesla.
  • When you are on the road, you need fast charging stations. The slow variety, which is mostly what is out there, only work for an overnight charge. So they are OK for a hotel but not for anything else.
  • Tesla has done an incredible job with their supercharging stations. Range anxiety is a signficantly reduced issue if you drive a Tesla.
  • While Electrify America is doing a nice job of buildling out fast charging stations for non Telsa EVs, their charging stations are signficantly slower than Tesla’s superchargers and they are not nearly as prevalent.

Given that range anxiety and charge times are among the top reasons that consumers don’t purchase EVs, it would make sense for the automobile industry to come together and standardize charging outlets and invest heavily in fast (super fast) charging stations. Telsa can likely get away with its own charging network and charging outlets, but everyone else cannot. I don’t understand why this is not a bigger priority for the industry. It needs to be.

#Blogging On The Road#climate crisis

Biking In Paris

We have been coming to Paris regularly for about 15 years and back in 2008, I started using the Velib bike share system and wrote about it here.

A lot has changed in a decade and a half when it comes to biking in Paris. There are more bikes, more bike lanes, and more bikers.

Velib is still a big piece of the Paris bike scene and they have a ton of pedal assist e-bikes in the system now. At most kiosks I see about half regular and half e-bikes. I wish NYC’s Citibike system had that mix in their kiosks.

But I’ve been using a service called DOTT this stay in Paris. Every morning I like to go out to a coffee shop that is a twelve minute walk but a four minute bike ride. So I launch the DOTT app and find the nearest bike which is usually less than a block away and unlock it with my app.

I took this one for coffee this morning:

There are bike parking stations on almost every block in Paris and so it is easy to find a good and appropriate place to leave your bike.

There are also a ton of scooters in Paris but that’s always been the case here. It does seem like the use of car transport is down a bit since we were here two years ago.

Biking around Paris is great. It’s a wonderful city to see in slow motion. Walking is certainly the best way to get around Paris but biking is a close second.

#Blogging On The Road

Traveling Again

On Tuesday night the Gotham Gal and I boarded an overnight flight at JFK and arrived in Paris on Wednesday morning.

That sounds like a normal thing to do and it is something we have been doing together since we met forty years ago.

But we have not done any international travel since November of 2019 due to the Covid pandemic. So for us, it is quite a thrill to be traveling again.

I took this photo last night walking back from an evening out on the town.

Being in Europe is different. The language is different. The people are slightly different. The culture is slightly different. Soaking all of that up and in is so great.

We are here on vacation and I’m not working or seeing folks outside of friends and family. So it is going to be a great couple of weeks and I think it will bring out some great posts about things I’m seeing and thinking. I’ve already got one on e-bikes and biking forming in my head.

#Blogging On The Road

Bearing Witness

Normally when we travel, The Gotham Gal posts about the things we do. She is a way better travel blogger than I am.

But today we did something that I want to talk a bit about.

We visited the Auschwitz concentration camps in southern Poland.

This is the first time I have visited one of these camps.

I have been to the various Holocaust memorials and have seen the photographs and heard and read the stories.

But being there in person is something else.

Staring into the rubble of a gas chamber (one of four at Birkenau) where hundreds of thousands were murdered because of their ethnicity and faith takes your breath away and fills your heart with dread.

It is not a pleasurable experience in the least.

But it is a very moving one.

One of the things I have come to understand about life is that bearing witness is something we must all do. We cannot avoid the pain of humanity. We must stare it in the face and feel it.

We did that today and I am glad we did.

#Blogging On The Road#life lessons

The USB Standard

We are sitting in the gate at London City Airport waiting for an early morning flight. Next to every seat in the waiting area is a bank of power outlets that look like this:

You will notice that there is one UK standard outlet and four USB outlets.

And, no matter where in the world you are from, it is likely that you have a USB cable for your phone.

I am charging my phone while I write this and I don’t have a UK power adapter on me.

That’s the power of a standard like USB which is only getting better and better over time.

I wonder if someday we won’t even have to deal with all of this:

#Blogging On The Road

Mobile Ticketing

The Gotham Gal and I walked into the Musee de l’Orangerie yesterday and found a line of about 20 people waiting to purchase tickets to enter. The Gotham Gal whipped out her phone, went to the Orangerie website, and bought two tickets that were sent to her phone. It took her less than a minute to do it and we walked in. As we were leaving we noticed the ticket line had almost doubled. We shook our heads and made our way to our next stop.

The mobile phone we all have in our pocket or purse can do so many things but one of its superpowers is a point of sale terminal. Increasingly there is no reason to wait in line for tickets to anything. You can just get them on your phone.

I really like just in time ticketing with the phone. I have the NYC East River Ferry app on my phone and whenever I want to take a boat to Brooklyn or Queens, or back, I open up the app, provision a ticket or two if I’m round tripping it, and I’m good to go. I am seeing more and more mass transit systems adopt this approach.

And then there is the NYC subway system which has started to roll out new turnstiles which you can tap and pay at:

I remember the days of carrying metal tokens in my pocket. It wasn’t that long ago!

The smartphone is twelve years old at the end of the month. It is remarkable to step back and think about how much it has changed how we live and work.

#Blogging On The Road

Low (No) Barriers To Entry

There are a dozen electric scooter companies operating in Paris right now. There are so many that the Mayor just announced that she will reduce that number to three with new rules for electric scooters in Paris.

But before we get into the new rules, I want to stare at that first sentence for a bit.

In less than a year, twelve companies have started operating electric scooter services in Paris.

Paris is the largest electric scooter market in the western world right now.

To enter this business, you need capital to purchase the scooters from China, you need a mobile app on iOS and Android to allow users to locate, unlock, and pay for the use of one, and you need a small team to handle the local logistics.

Apparently those are not significant barriers because a dozen different companies have been able to do it in less than a year.

There are many things that are attractive about the electric scooter business. It has taken off as a transportation option for consumers and is the fastest growing new transportation technology in terms of revenues in history.

Electric scooters also are a much cleaner way to travel than cars or other gas powered technologies.

So there is a lot to like about this business.

But if anyone can open up shop and compete with you with little to no differentiation and your only defensibility is the time it takes to download a new mobile app and put in your credit card, well then one has to ask if this is or will be a good business.

And that is where the Mayor of Paris comes into the picture. She wants to limit the number of scooter providers to three, by requiring licenses and issuing only three of them.

That will sufficiently lower the competition in Paris, lead to a triopoly which may stabilize pricing and margins, and possibly reduce the number of scooters littered all over Paris.

Winning a license will be a political process and there are many issues with that. And the three companies that win a license will become acquisition targets for the big players which are increasingly the ride share companies (who themselves have very low barriers to entry but now have public currencies to buy with).

There are many who have wondered whether ride share will ever be a good business. The public market caps of Uber and Lyft suggest that it will be or that there are plenty of people who currently think it will be.

Scooters are ride share on steroids. Even easier to get into the game with possibly a larger market opportunity.

It will be quite interesting to see how this plays out and how much regulation will be needed to tame this market.

#Blogging On The Road

Fly Like A Bird

We arrived in Paris this morning and, after dropping off our bags, we walked to our favorite cafe for breakfast and on the way we passed a Bird scooter waiting patiently for a rider.

We don’t yet have Bird scooters in NYC, at least to my knowledge, but apparently they are available in Paris.

It is impressive how quickly Bird has built out its international footprint. In the winter of 2018, I started seeing them in our neighborhood in Venice Beach Los Angeles.

And now less than 18 months later they are in Paris (and likely many other cities in Europe).

I have no idea how good of a business electric scooters is. There is no shortage of competition and, as I’ve written about here before, the dockless system can be a nuisance leading to inevitable regulation.

But Bird is not waiting to figure all of that out before building out a global footprint. It is impressive. I hope it works. The benefits from an environmental perspective are significant.

#Blogging On The Road