In the early days of COVID, I remember feeling capable of predicting the future, mainly because San Francisco was the first US city to issue a shelter in place order. Different than an actual authoritarian lockdown, it relies on mutual respect. Most people stayed home and left only when it was absolutely necessary. That is one positive aspect of liberal communities is that they follow government orders. In this particular case, since we knew little about COVID, a SIP order made sense. Until it became lunacy.
Brazil was still wide-open a year ago, but we were in full lockdown. Getting updates from friends all over the world was fascinating. All of us sharing our little war stories. The new habits that were formed, the stupidity around many rules, ultimately highlighting the compounding evolution the planet is going through. For the first time, we all faced the same problem, while being connected citizens of the planet.
No wonder it was such a profitable year for everything technology-related. I’m grateful for the vaccine and for the fact that the future I invested in came early and in an accelerated fashion.
Slowly but surely, I see California coming back. I have made a decision to leave SF and CA (more on that in another post). The come back is slow, services are deprecated, prices are higher and the pace is different. I can tell you that I have been through many weird moments having been in over 25 hotels in the past 4 months in a couple of countries.
In Brazil, I suspect we’ll only get out of COVID in 2022. Meaning, we’ll have a presidential election while the pandemic is still happening. It is shameful that we don’t have a political class that truly believes in capitalism with dignity and empathy towards life preservation and evolution. We either get neo-marxism or populist right-wing dementia.
I love investing in Latam and the US. Definitely, not for amateurs. But chaos is where the best opportunities arise. Like Pmarca said, time to build. Let’s go. Fuck COVID.
During most of 2017, I averaged 5–6 hours a night. Not sleeping enough was killing me and my ability to get things done.
I have made 30+ trades in the past 18 months using over US$100K in margin. Interesting to see that margin soared this year. It can be quite useful.
Fortunately, institutional investors in Brazil now understand that they must have a better, diversified portfolio across all asset classes.
