I keep thinking about the swiftness with which Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed. In the span of 48 hours, it went bust because as interest rates rose, VC capital to SVB’s portfolio companies decreased. That required the companies to start withdrawing deposits from SVB to fund day-to-day business operations but those deposits sat in bonds [...]
economy
This repost is from almost exactly six years ago but is still relevant today. Enjoy. I had a dream the other night my sister, Rosie, and I slept in the same bed. She started hogging all the covers and I yanked them back from her and said, “No. You can’t take all the covers.” It’s [...]
June 21 and 22 are Amazon Prime days so I wanted to take a minute to talk about the reality of this company and capitalism in general. Earlier this month, the New York Times came out with an article titled “The Amazon Customers Don’t See.” It’s quite long so I won’t detail the intricacies of [...]
The other day a close friend remarked as a society we have decided we will do anything to save a human life, which is both true and not true. It’s true that we are physically distancing, that we’re staying at home, that many businesses are closed due to COVID-19 because we want to save [...]
I had a dream the other night my sister, Rosie, and I slept in the same bed. She started hogging all the covers and I yanked them back from her and said, “No. You can’t take all the covers.” It’s not a dream based on reality because Rosie cares a lot about sharing, but nonetheless, [...]
The other day my Lyft driver said the word “thug” with so much derision it sounded like a slur. Frankly, I think that’s how he meant it. He also praised a town in California that restricts the number of residents by not building any new dwellings, and the town would rather pay penalties than allow [...]
Right now the funds in my bank account are low – I am one of those people who lives paycheck to paycheck. I think it’s fair to say I’m a slave to my paycheck and I’m not the only one. If I lost my job tomorrow, I’d be in big trouble. I notice there’s a [...]
The other week I posted a news story on facebook with commentary that I have compassion for robbers and the robbed, and was met with so much vitriol it astounded me. People I didn’t know called me a moron (and worse), told me to get off of facebook, etc. What I heard over and over [...]
A part of me doesn’t want to write about this because it makes me uncomfortable, but I was affected so deeply I know that I must. On Thursday, I went into San Francisco and while there, walked through a BART station corridor covered with ads for Gap. The walls and floor showed image after image [...]
For audio, scroll to the bottom. I have some hang-ups about money. I think it’s safe to say I’m not alone in this. For a long time I thought if I made a lot of money I would turn into a jerk, which is kind of silly because to paraphrase Henry Ford, money doesn’t change [...]
