In the midst of my freshman year at UC Santa Cruz, just as I was finally adjusting to my new life - familiarizing myself with my campus nestled in the redwood forest, forming new friendships, and joining student organizations I, along with students across the country, was abruptly pulled away from campus and sent home to finish the rest of the school year remotely.
COVID-19 struck and took the world by storm, instilling a global frenzy of fear, panic, and uncertainty. California became the first state to implement a statewide stay-at-home order, marking a significant shift in daily life. Schools and universities shut down, non-essential businesses closed, employees were ordered to work from home, and large gatherings were banned.
Within a matter of days, the lively world we lived in was turned upside down. The familiar rhythm of life paused, replaced by a new normal of social distancing and remote interactions. Streets were empty, restaurants and stores closed indefinitely, social hubs like malls, clubs, and cafes closed, even parks and beaches had restrictions. As people were forced to retreat to their homes, the physical world felt emptier than ever. But in the strange world of the pandemic, I found an unexpected silver lining. With a surplus of newfound time on my hands, I decided to dive into something that would shape the course of my future: investing.
As global markets crashed in March 2020, I became obsessed with figuring out what was happening and why the funds my mom had invested on my behalf was seemingly going up in flames. I was losing my savings that I had so diligently saved up throughout my childhood (quick shoutout to my mom for encouraging me to start saving money at a young age. Thanks Mom!), and I had no idea why. Naturally, I freaked out. Luckily, my funds were managed by my mom's financial advisor, Shane, so I wasn't able to make any dumb or rash decisions. Instead, he helped ease my anxiety by sending me helpful and easy-to-read articles. I continued to read CNBC, Wall Street Journal, and other finance and business-related publications in an attempt to understand what was going on and how to think about things. However, what started as a concern quickly blossomed into a passion. I discovered that investing wasn't only about making money; it was a lens through which I could understand and engage with the world.
I immersed myself in the world of finance, throwing myself into this new obsession with a fervor that surprised even me. When you're learning about a stock, you don't just learn about the business - you learn about its leaders, its industry, and the broader economy. You end up absorbing a wealth of knowledge (no pun intended, lol) about how the world works.
Just one year before, I spent virtually all of the free time I had watching NBA games, YouTube, and Netflix shows. Now, I found myself staying up late at night reviewing companies’ annual reports, scrolling through investor presentations, and listening to investing podcasts. I taught myself how to read financial statements, analyze businesses and industries, value companies, and perform technical analysis on price charts. When I wasn’t deep in research, I was browsing the finance community on Twitter, referred to then as “FinTwit”, watching YouTube videos on finance, engaging in investing-related subreddits, and talking to people in investing communities on Discord. I had become a learning machine, and I loved it.
As I gained more knowledge about how the stock market worked and the basics of investing, I decided I wanted to invest my own money. I withdrew my funds from my mom’s mutual fund, opened a TD Ameritrade account, and scoured the internet to decide which stocks and ETFs to invest in. At the time, the markets were extremely volatile, but stocks had risen from their lows due to the Fed’s economic stimulus. The rapid recovery, especially in tech, was extraordinary. The pandemic catalyzed a shift in behavior and increased the demand for tech products and services to unprecedented levels. As the physical world shut down, companies like Shopify, Netflix, Roku, and Zoom, to name a few, saw explosive growth as they became essential tools for shopping, entertainment, and work in a remote world. This trend, alongside a macroeconomic environment favorable towards growth stocks (defined as, companies expected to deliver substantial earnings growth), resulted in these companies’ valuations skyrocketing.
While researching these stocks, I discovered a deep fascination with technological innovation. The more I learned about these companies, the more I began to understand how innovation shapes the future, and it got me excited! If we look at the most prominent companies of the past decade or so: Amazon fundamentally changed the way people shop, Facebook reshaped our social world, Apple put computers in our pockets, and Google transformed the way we access information. All of these companies started out with just a few people who dreamt big and imagined what could be. And I devoted much of my time trying to find companies to invest in that could define the next decade of technology.
One investment firm that opened my eyes to this perspective was Ark Invest. They rose to fame during the pandemic by boldly investing in disruptive innovation across AI, robotics, energy storage, blockchain, and DNA sequencing, based on a thesis that these technologies were not only converging and poised to drive future economic growth, but extremely misunderstood by traditional Wall Street managers. Initially, their portfolio thrived, benefiting from the massive bull market in stocks, but performance has since cooled off substantially.
Ark brought a venture capital-like investment approach to the public markets, and even if some of their stock picks don't pan out in the long run, their big-picture thinking about innovation deeply influenced me. It may seem obvious now, but Ark made me realize that investing could be a way to participate in the technological innovations defining our future, and they fundamentally altered the way I think about the future. It made me more optimistic.
My favorite thing about investing, as a craft, is that it forces you to think about the future. What will the world look like in 5-10+ years? What would I want it to look like? It pushes your imagination in a way that’s exciting and inspiring.
The cascade of learning during the pandemic not only made me realize how curious I was about technology and its impact on the world. It also opened doors to my curiosity in other aspects such as philosophy, psychology, and religion, and more. It turns out, when studying wasn't being forced down my throat in a classroom setting, there was nothing I'd rather do.
This journey taught me something else: while public market investing gave me a window into innovation, I found myself increasingly drawn to the earliest stages of technological innovation - where ideas first take shape and ambitious founders dare to reimagine the future: startups.
While public market investing allows you to benefit from the growth of more established companies, venture capital offers something different, and what I think is more intriguing: the opportunity to help build the future. What excites me most about venture capital isn't just the potential financial returns - it's the chance to be part of the value creation process, rather than merely benefitting from it. Startups are at the frontier of pushing what's possible, and venture capitalists get a front-row seat.
Venture capital in its purest form is about backing founders at the earliest stages, when their ideas are just beginning to take form, when their companies are still undefined, and their technology and products raw, and assisting them to build towards their vision. In venture capital, you're betting on potential, on vision, on a dream.
Some might view VCs as people "outside the arena" rather than in it, but I see venture capital as a crucial component of the innovation machine. It creates opportunities not just for founders, but for entire communities that benefit from technological advancement. By identifying and supporting promising startups early, VCs help shape which futures become reality.
There is a trope in self-help, popularized by James Clear, author of the mega hit, Atomic Habits, that every decision you make today, is a vote for the type of person you’ll be tomorrow. This idea extends to investing. I’d posit that every investment decision and every startup you back is a vote for the kind of world you want to see tomorrow. That's ultimately what draws me to venture capital - the opportunity to vote, through action and capital, for the future I want to see built.
Thanks for reading!
great read! very engaging storytelling