"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." — James Baldwin I remember looking outside my KLM flight and seeing the rolling hills of the East Bay before passing over San Jose and making the turn northward over the valley to end the decent while flying closely over the chilly Bay waves and Burlingame strip malls . The tech billboards as you ride up towards the Bayview and Dogpatch from the SFO tarmac. The first time I arrived was nothing short of magical. A specific type of emotion took hold of me, a perfect mix of excitement, anxiety, anticipation, hungry, eagerness, thirsty for experiences and people, and building. Here, anything could happen. And in all honesty, I was very fortunate to see many anythings that happened there for me. The year is 2008. MGMT, M.I.A., Rihanna, and Vampire Weekend dominate the airwaves. This was a humid summer: indie sleaze, skinny jeans, fixies, third wave coffee, and manbuns are everywhere. Obama’s inaugural campaign was in full effect, and with it the wave of millennial optimism that fueled the social media and ZIRP age for years to come. We graduated from college as the housing bubble popped and culminated into the worst recession the world has seen in decades. There weren't many design jobs around, and I didn’t have much to spend at the time to begin with, so my general naivety around the direness of the economy definitely helped taking risks as I probably felt there wasn’t much to lose. As a design school graduate student I was invited to talk about my work and research at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I had finished working with a team of fellow design students on a different project at the time, an early exploration of hardware, social connectivity, and identity. This project got so much traction after we demo’d it during our graduation expo that even Gizmodo picked it up. People around us convinced us to try and turn it into a company. Having been obsessed with tech and Silicon Valley many years before that through my path into user interface design, I took the opportunity of taking a domestic flight to the West Coast. I took BART from the airport to the Powell station and was slapped in the face with San Francisco’s civic reality instantly as I made my way from Union Square to my Chinatown hotel. I didn’t end up sleeping there very often as San Francisco is an interesting place when you’re in your early twenties. Instead, I met a range of people that ended up becoming friends, coworkers, and sources of inspiration for years to come. And I had many anythings happen to me, like I mentioned earlier. On my flight to PHL during that first visit, I had—very randomly—already met the Philly's finest, the Bloodhound Gang's Jimmy Pop, which set the tone for my expectations. In SF, I got to join as a +1 to Musk’s opening of the Menlo Park Tesla dealership. Rode a Roadster up and down the 101. At the time I was just impressed I got to ride an electric vehicle. I had no idea I was at arms distance from most PayPal mafia, let alone that Musk was there. During my second visit to the Bay, I got to meet Jack Dorsey who was already infamously running both Square and Twitter at the time. When I moved to San Francisco and joined the leadership team at Honor, I got to work directly with Marc Andreessen a few times. I was deeply impressed with him. The company closing a16z in our A round at the time was about the best signal you could have as a startup—and I’d say it still is, but these days it says more about you as a founder personally than it necessarily being a prime traction indicator. Board meetings with Marc were intense. In an age where company-wide data access was still mostly accessible by the eng org, I remember working many nights and weekend to pull data and finish metric slides in time for the big meeting. I remember polishing up slides until the very last moment, often having to transfer multi-gb keynote files minutes before Marc and entourage would arrive. A particular detail was the cold diet coke that was specifically requested to be ready for him upon arrival. One of my first investors back in the Netherlands, Marque (what are the odds) also always drank coke light, and I recall thinking it must have been some secret investor thing to be into Diet Coke (spoiler alert: it was just a Gen X thing). Marque was very self-reflective investor, and the first Marque I was deeply impressed with. He taught me a lot about being self-reflective. At one point he decided his success was enough, sold his home, and has been traveling the world with his husband ever since. I owe a lot to Marc. His signature was on my O1 visa application. Prep for Marc-led board meetings truly taught me the expectations at the C-level in Silicon Valley, and I deeply respected him for that. The firm at the time ironically also had one of the most active—and in my opinion successful—DEI directives (remember those?), helping talent from underrepresented backgrounds successfully break into technology. A16z’s startups needed talented designers, researchers, engineers more than anything in the golden age of designing for active user counts and retention rates. For Obama-era optimist Millennials in the prime of their startup-productivity years, this meant a desire for work environments that reflected progressive values more closely. Venture Capital, and particularly a16z understood this, especially as many firms were hit with the first #metoo scandals. When the ZIRP era ended post crypto-grift, and VC partners failed to bring in new LPs as cryptofunds failed to produce returns, the world’s wealthiest devalued venture capital as an asset and the first mandates for layoff waves started. From SaaS crunch to AI-anxiety and further rounds of layoffs in the name of efficacy, to where we are today. I wasn’t surprised when he boasted this week that he doesn’t have any self-reflection. It’s a smart line to say given a16z’s position: having brazenly embraced the most anti-intellectual political movement since the 20s-40s and seeing that investment veer in a direction where only further lawlessness will yield returns, it’s a proactive “Wir haben es night gewusst” before atrocities like the ones carried out by the US dept of Homeland Security come to more mainstream light and start affecting the a16z brand halo in ways not even the best PR teams trying to cover for their opinionated founder can fix. In a way, I’m jealous he can say that—or even take that position. To have such privilege that doing or saying whatever carries no consequence whatsoever, and actually believe it, must feel powerful. I struggle deeply with the past and the future on the daily, and don’t always think I’m better off for it. Howver, for a16z I predict on long term this path will only further reduce their brand appeal across a diverse range of markets to defense and (ultra)conservative founders. But I am reminded of a third Marc—one whose name echo’ed through centuries as the author of his Meditations. Marcus Aurelius, self-reflector extraordinaire, held himself accountable to this practice daily, for decades. Ran an empire of 70 million people on this. Didn't publish it. Didn't brand it. Wrote it in a military tent, in Greek, for nobody. The public output of ‘great men’ has historically never been vulnerability. You see speeches, products, decisions, 'impact'. You don’t see journals, conversations, moments where reflection happened. No lack of self-reflection will take away the realities these men shape around them; depression, burnout, failed relationships, a dark internal emptiness only to be filled by the blind chase of achievement . Behind every unreflective great man is a quiet collaborator carrying the weight of his blind spots. A16z will say what’s best for their founders, and their LPs. I miss the old Marc, though. So maybe the difference between Marc, Marque, and Marcus isn't power. It's that one of them was afraid of his own ledger. Things on the internet I found interesting lately:
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Diet Coke or A Story of 3 Marcs
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." — James Baldwin I remember looking outside my KLM flight and seeing the rolling hills of the East Bay before passing over San Jose and making the turn northward over the valley to end the decent while flying closely over the chilly Bay waves and Burlingame strip malls . The tech billboards as you ride up towards the Bayview and Dogpatch from the SFO tarmac. The first time I arrived was nothing short of magical. A specific type of emotion took hold of me, a perfect mix of excitement, anxiety, anticipation, hungry, eagerness, thirsty for experiences and people, and building. Here, anything could happen. And in all honesty, I was very fortunate to see many anythings that happened there for me. The year is 2008. MGMT, M.I.A., Rihanna, and Vampire Weekend dominate the airwaves. This was a humid summer: indie sleaze, skinny jeans, fixies, third wave coffee, and manbuns are everywhere. Obama’s inaugural campaign was in full effect, and with it the wave of millennial optimism that fueled the social media and ZIRP age for years to come. We graduated from college as the housing bubble popped and culminated into the worst recession the world has seen in decades. There weren't many design jobs around, and I didn’t have much to spend at the time to begin with, so my general naivety around the direness of the economy definitely helped taking risks as I probably felt there wasn’t much to lose. As a design school graduate student I was invited to talk about my work and research at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I had finished working with a team of fellow design students on a different project at the time, an early exploration of hardware, social connectivity, and identity. This project got so much traction after we demo’d it during our graduation expo that even Gizmodo picked it up. People around us convinced us to try and turn it into a company. Having been obsessed with tech and Silicon Valley many years before that through my path into user interface design, I took the opportunity of taking a domestic flight to the West Coast. I took BART from the airport to the Powell station and was slapped in the face with San Francisco’s civic reality instantly as I made my way from Union Square to my Chinatown hotel. I didn’t end up sleeping there very often as San Francisco is an interesting place when you’re in your early twenties. Instead, I met a range of people that ended up becoming friends, coworkers, and sources of inspiration for years to come. And I had many anythings happen to me, like I mentioned earlier. On my flight to PHL during that first visit, I had—very randomly—already met the Philly's finest, the Bloodhound Gang's Jimmy Pop, which set the tone for my expectations. In SF, I got to join as a +1 to Musk’s opening of the Menlo Park Tesla dealership. Rode a Roadster up and down the 101. At the time I was just impressed I got to ride an electric vehicle. I had no idea I was at arms distance from most PayPal mafia, let alone that Musk was there. During my second visit to the Bay, I got to meet Jack Dorsey who was already infamously running both Square and Twitter at the time. When I moved to San Francisco and joined the leadership team at Honor, I got to work directly with Marc Andreessen a few times. I was deeply impressed with him. The company closing a16z in our A round at the time was about the best signal you could have as a startup—and I’d say it still is, but these days it says more about you as a founder personally than it necessarily being a prime traction indicator. Board meetings with Marc were intense. In an age where company-wide data access was still mostly accessible by the eng org, I remember working many nights and weekend to pull data and finish metric slides in time for the big meeting. I remember polishing up slides until the very last moment, often having to transfer multi-gb keynote files minutes before Marc and entourage would arrive. A particular detail was the cold diet coke that was specifically requested to be ready for him upon arrival. One of my first investors back in the Netherlands, Marque (what are the odds) also always drank coke light, and I recall thinking it must have been some secret investor thing to be into Diet Coke (spoiler alert: it was just a Gen X thing). Marque was very self-reflective investor, and the first Marque I was deeply impressed with. He taught me a lot about being self-reflective. At one point he decided his success was enough, sold his home, and has been traveling the world with his husband ever since. I owe a lot to Marc. His signature was on my O1 visa application. Prep for Marc-led board meetings truly taught me the expectations at the C-level in Silicon Valley, and I deeply respected him for that. The firm at the time ironically also had one of the most active—and in my opinion successful—DEI directives (remember those?), helping talent from underrepresented backgrounds successfully break into technology. A16z’s startups needed talented designers, researchers, engineers more than anything in the golden age of designing for active user counts and retention rates. For Obama-era optimist Millennials in the prime of their startup-productivity years, this meant a desire for work environments that reflected progressive values more closely. Venture Capital, and particularly a16z understood this, especially as many firms were hit with the first #metoo scandals. When the ZIRP era ended post crypto-grift, and VC partners failed to bring in new LPs as cryptofunds failed to produce returns, the world’s wealthiest devalued venture capital as an asset and the first mandates for layoff waves started. From SaaS crunch to AI-anxiety and further rounds of layoffs in the name of efficacy, to where we are today. I wasn’t surprised when he boasted this week that he doesn’t have any self-reflection. It’s a smart line to say given a16z’s position: having brazenly embraced the most anti-intellectual political movement since the 20s-40s and seeing that investment veer in a direction where only further lawlessness will yield returns, it’s a proactive “Wir haben es night gewusst” before atrocities like the ones carried out by the US dept of Homeland Security come to more mainstream light and start affecting the a16z brand halo in ways not even the best PR teams trying to cover for their opinionated founder can fix. In a way, I’m jealous he can say that—or even take that position. To have such privilege that doing or saying whatever carries no consequence whatsoever, and actually believe it, must feel powerful. I struggle deeply with the past and the future on the daily, and don’t always think I’m better off for it. Howver, for a16z I predict on long term this path will only further reduce their brand appeal across a diverse range of markets to defense and (ultra)conservative founders. But I am reminded of a third Marc—one whose name echo’ed through centuries as the author of his Meditations. Marcus Aurelius, self-reflector extraordinaire, held himself accountable to this practice daily, for decades. Ran an empire of 70 million people on this. Didn't publish it. Didn't brand it. Wrote it in a military tent, in Greek, for nobody. The public output of ‘great men’ has historically never been vulnerability. You see speeches, products, decisions, 'impact'. You don’t see journals, conversations, moments where reflection happened. No lack of self-reflection will take away the realities these men shape around them; depression, burnout, failed relationships, a dark internal emptiness only to be filled by the blind chase of achievement . Behind every unreflective great man is a quiet collaborator carrying the weight of his blind spots. A16z will say what’s best for their founders, and their LPs. I miss the old Marc, though. So maybe the difference between Marc, Marque, and Marcus isn't power. It's that one of them was afraid of his own ledger. Things on the internet I found interesting lately:
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