Last week it was exactly a year ago I was in The Netherlands where in a matter of days all my meetings were cancelled and moved to Zoom, while on TV the Dutch prime minister initiated the ‘intelligent lockdown’. It was also the week I came back to Canada where border officials were utterly clueless in figuring out how to deal with arriving passengers by asking the now weird sounding question, ‘did you hear about Covid-19?’ One year on we know a lot more, we’ve adapted and learned some important lessons. We also started to live life differently and I asked myself: what did I actually do in a year at home and what did I actually learn ? And, did we get better at things, did we progress or did we lose something valuable ?
Working in tech and venture finance made the transition really easy, of course. After a few weeks of confusion and chaos the stock markets bounced back vigorously and pointed to the fact that tech was to be the real winner of this pandemic. Most of my companies did very well, in fact some surged, yet a few were too close to the online/offline boundary and took an unfortunate hit. One portfolio company had to be refinanced, but even that was a relatively easy exercise during these days of high liquidity. In fact it surprised me how quickly new deals got traction with investors, were fully financed and how cash streamed into our angel fund which enabled us to make even more investments. On the flip side, not less than three acquisition efforts last summer got to a halt and put a damper on some of that liquidity. Only one of them was purely related to Covid and all three of them are up for a retry this summer.
So on the business level things moved in an unprecedented yet positive direction and with a travel and social schedule out of the window, I could now focus on more meaningful home activity and regular sleep patterns. Add to that a daily hike routine - see photo - and you get a picture of a vastly improved lifestyle, for the first time in years the inbox could be cleared out and long lagging administrative tasks were cleared up. But I found out quickly that I did not actually spend less time behind the screen, everything I did somehow got more intense. The few hours a day saved by working from home and not hanging out with others were rapidly filled with other screen focused activity. The DuoLingo language course was a case in point. Rather than leisurely doing the recommended 15-30 minute daily activity, it soon turned into an obsessive hours long language practice in order to ‘maintain my position’ in the league tables. I now finally know what ‘gamification’ really means, and my daughter aptly remarked, ‘Dad, you fell into their trap’. But if you need to know how to say ‘a first name is not a last name' in Hebrew, call me.
In fact, it all meant a deeper dive in practically anything. There was time to work out the different layers of angel and venture fund returns, scope out new and ambitious projects, read stacks of books and spend countless hours on Twitter tracking the latest pandemic and vaccination data, as well as all the elections and coups that were taking place around the globe. And firing up this blog of course, as well as subscribing to a host of others on tech, finance and politics. The other trap door that was opened was talking: while you can keep Zoom meetings pretty short, you can lose yourself in the endless stream of podcasts and of course the latest fad, the ultimate time-waster: Clubhouse. You have to be disciplined and curate to really manage content consumption which is hard because there is time and there is so much going on. And somehow it all feels relevant to what you’re doing. So all in all, I have become busier than ever before, but it feels better as each activity benefits from a bit more time and some deeper analysis.
And that goes for learning practical new skills too: baking bread my friends is hard work and after my failed challah it was decided that I better focus on the French artisan style breads and they’re great:
At the same time’s there’s a renewed appreciation of family life, with two daughters graduated and at university it is great to have them home for a bit. We have found a new balance and learned how to co-operate, collaborate and get to know each other better again in a time where they both would have been away living on their own. Realizing the pandemic lockdowns are hardest on the young people we should also not forget that it will give them a unique opportunity to learn new skills and rapidly adapt to adversity and difficult circumstances. I am therefore not overly concerned over the ‘lost generation’ madness that now fills social media. My late father and his generation missed school completely for two, three years during World War II, were handed their certificate without any meaningful coursework completed and went on to become one of the most successful generations ever.
Maybe we all need some real setbacks to recalibrate and reassess what we were doing in a rushed way without giving everything a deep enough focus. The pandemic has also spurred a surge in creativity, with all the tools we have at our fingertips we are now able to really understand how to put them to good use. I do realize it has been very hard for many and I also grasp that we are not out of the woods yet, but one year on we should be able to find meaning in what has happened and find direction in all the new and exciting opportunities that have presented themselves. Hang in there, spring’s here and things will get better soon.
The most wonderful thing about this period was having my adult son who lives in Los Angeles spend several months in Vancouver. This would not happen in normal times. On the other hand I have become less active and I miss my bike commute. I am concerned about some people in our community who have recently tested positive. This is not over yet and there are still changes to come.