The Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals

I had my first long day of face to face meetings yesterday in New York (SOHO to be exact).

It was delightful to be back in action the way I like to do business and meetings. Most were planned but as I always allow for in New York, I took a couple meetings with people/friends that pinged me randomly knowing I was in the city.

Of course, I had one Larry David moment early as my Uber driver tattled on me to HQ for not wearing a mask (because asking me to put it on would have been rude?!) so I got a letter from $UBER letting me know I was on double secret probation. My big city pandemic game is definitely slow after being maskless in Phoenix for too long.

I was up early to meet with Jamby’s founder Jack Ambrose. I am not the target audience but use the product. They are the $LULU of laziness or as they call the product line – ‘Performance Inactivewear’.

I ended the day over dinner with my friend @JohnStreetCapital (Justin), who I met for the first time. Justin’s wife Elizabeth also joined and she is also a fintech VC.

This morning I am working on some content projects near and dear to my heart.

For lunch, I am seeing old friends for lunch at one of my fave spots in midtown ‘L’Entrecote‘.

Dinner with my pal Jim O’Shaughnessy will be a laughfest.

The new normal will be a mix of Zoom and Face to Face. I am 55 so as much as Zoom has been great for business, I am thrilled to report that face to face is not dead.

My gut is that Manhattan will be full throttle (for the type of meetings I like to do) by the fall. By full throttle, I mean that the New Yorkers will be here and not just me asking them to come into the city to meet me while I am here.

I will never be a ‘professional’ at Zoom as it relates to the business of VC and investing.

Speaking of ‘professional’ I really liked this Shane Parrish tweetstorm on the difference between ‘amateurs’ and ‘professionals’…

Have a great day.