This is a good news / bad news post, and whether the news is good or bad for you specifically depends on a.) whether or not you like having me around and b.) where you live.
The news is this: I’m not going to be back in Denver for a while. Where “a while” equals months rather than weeks. As many of you know, I flee Denver each summer both to avoid the kiln-like temperatures there and to enjoy the fruits of living on the water in Maine. Typically, I head back to Denver in the fall, at the conclusion of each Red Sox season.
But this year – as you know if you’ve read the news in the last month – is different. Very different. Whatever the future holds for the Red Sox season, and please, let’s not talk about that right now, I will not be returning to Denver according to the usual schedule.
The primary reason for this is, as you might have gathered, the economy. While we at RedMonk seem to be trucking right along (cross your fingers), my financial advisor/brother has succeeded in impressing upon me the immense gravity of our current financial crisis, putting it in a historical perspective that is – candidly – terrifying. As a consequence of those conversations, my loft in Denver is now up for rent. Technically, this is probably an overreaction on my part: unlike many homeowners, I bought what I could afford and have no problems paying my mortgage. But with things bad and getting worse by the hour, maximizing my return while minimizing my expenses just seems like the safest approach.
For the foreseeable future, then, I’ll be remaining here at the family place in Maine, which is (fortunately) unoccupied in winter. That’s good news, presumably, for my parents, as I’ll be absorbing the cost of the utilities, and for my Maine/Boston area friends because they’ll get to see me with greater frequency. It’s also good news for our clients in the northeast, because the friction for arranging meetings in the Boston and NYC areas just went down significantly.
It’s bad news, of course, for my Denver friends and family, and by extension, for me, because I’ll be seeing them considerably less than I’m used to. It also negatively impacts me from a travel perspective, because the west coast trip jumps from an easy two hours to a brutal seven with a connection. Which is why you’ll probably see me schedule fewer, but longer, trips out that way.
But, as Tim says, times are tough, and we all need to batten down the hatches. Fortunately, I’m on sound financial footing. Nevertheless, I am determined to follow Sequoia Capital’s advice on a personal level as closely as I can, meaning that I need to preserve capital at all costs and by (virtually) any means necessary. With any luck, I’ll look back on this later and conclude that it was entirely unnecessary, but just in case, I’m taking extreme measures.
That this move negatively impacts me in many respects is acceptable, but it does pain me that my absence will be felt by some folks in Denver. The economy, however, is forcing all of us to make some unpleasant decisions. Though to be honest, this decision isn’t really unpleasant – I miss Denver and my friends there, but it’s no secret that I love Maine – even in the winter. More to the point, this decision is a hell of a lot easier than, say, choosing between freezing or starving – the choice many Maine families will be looking at this winter.
Anyway, for RedMonk clients, the net for you is that I’m going to be easier to schedule for northeast events, while west coast gigs will require just a bit more planning and notice.
If you have questions, you know where to find me. And for the Denver folks in the audience, I’ll get back as often as I can. Promise.
