angel investor / exited blockchain founder
Joined July 2009
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- Following325
- Followers2.6K
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Excited to publish a map of health sensor startups today in collaboration with @huntermacdonald (full link in comments).
We've taken our belief that there's still a lot more room for reading and writing to the human body to transform healthcare and mapped out the players.
Who excites you? Who is still missing?
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We make assumptions not because they are accurate, but because our minds need justification to feel safe.
Uncertainty feels dangerous, so the brain invents narratives to close the loop.
The fastest way to eliminate unnecessary drama—in founder partnerships, investing relationships, or personal life—is to notice when you're filling in the blanks. Stop assuming intent; ask for direct clarification.
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A common trap early in the venture building process: spending months searching for the "ideal co-founder" before there's real momentum on the idea.
Instead of burning cycles trying to force founder chemistry, build solo by default.
Focus entirely on customer problems, prototypes, and shipping. The right partners emerge when you are actively building something worth joining.
"Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously." — Prentis Hemphill
One of the cleanest definitions of personal boundaries I’ve encountered.
A healthy boundary isn’t an act of aggression or walling yourself off. It is preserving enough space and clarity that you can stay genuinely caring toward someone else without compromising your own integrity.
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Blank space isn't idle time—it's neurobiological maintenance.
The prefrontal cortex is small, resource-intensive, and fatigues fast. When you pack every waking hour with stimulation, meetings, and games, you squeeze out the cognitive room where quiet insight forms.
Relishing unstructured blank space before you’re exhausted is where real strategic clarity and creative flow emerge. Protect room on the calendar to do nothing stimulating.
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Really enjoyed having @chuk_xyz on my podcast and the few times we've chatted at conferences. Bet this is going to be a banger!
Nobody really just wants money.
Money is just a means to an end: security, opportunity, freedom, even status.
Those ends haven’t changed.
What's changing is the technology underneath the decades old financial system.
Introducing Money Machines, a podcast about how finance is becoming 24/7, programmable and agent-driven.
Join hosts @chuk_xyz and @rparekh as they speak with operators working on stablecoins, tokenized assets and artificial intelligence.
The conversations examine how emerging financial systems work, what it takes to build them and what these shifts mean for businesses and investors.
The first episode drops tomorrow. Links in the first reply.
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When people start angel investing, they ask: "How do I get deal flow?"
They sign up for syndicates, networks, and pitch competitions. The mistake is aiming for sheer deal volume.
Most startups fail. In early-stage venture, you only win by backing the extraordinary—founders with undeniable unfair advantages or who are top 1% in the single lever their company needs to win.
When my investments failed, it was almost always because I settled for "good" deal flow instead of waiting for exceptional.
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Sustainable habit change in high-stress work:
Whenever I tried adopting 3 or 4 new routines at once, they demanded hours a day and collapsed within weeks.
Instead of trying to overhaul everything, change exactly one thing. Anchor that new micro-behavior to an existing daily habit you already do without thinking.
Stacking one solid foundation at a time is how sustainable energy actually builds.
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Norms are helpful until you hit a major life or career transition—then they become limiting.
One insight from navigating transitions over the years: they require comfort. If you are deeply uncomfortable, you will resist the transition and fight reality.
Finding grounding and psychological comfort first is what allows you to break old norms and move forward cleanly.
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Don’t assume an exceptional founder isn't raising.
Always ask to connect with startups that excite you. You never know—I've invested in companies founded by billionaires who didn't need capital, but wanted key connections and perspective.
If you wait for a formal raise announcement, you're already late. Proactivity is what creates access.
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There are four core foundations of health: sleep, diet, exercise, and social connection.
Sleep sits at the bottom of the stack supporting all three.
Staying awake for 24 hours reduces cognitive performance, reaction times, and judgment to the physiological equivalent of having 5 alcoholic drinks in an hour.
If you don't feel clear, creative, or resilient, don't overcomplicate your routine—fix your sleep baseline first.
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Today's AI agents ace benchmarks but still fail at organizational memory: they can't remember what happened last quarter, what your team already tried, or personal working preferences.
Backing Hyperspell came down to backing that exact missing piece: indexing enterprise tools into unified memory networks agents can query.
The lesson: look for the fundamental architectural gaps emerging as autonomous workflows scale.
In life it's easy to feel isolated—to believe conditions were uniquely stacked against you.
Like a tree planted in tough soil, the world isn't out to get you. I spent years holding resentment toward my parents because our home lacked the tools to resolve conflict safely.
Over time, I saw the other side: they were doing the best they knew how, and in my pain, I was the one who shut them out. Recognizing that your caretakers were doing their flawed best is often where real healing starts.
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Two boundary habits that protect high-leverage creative energy:
1. No-meeting mornings. Booking 9am to 1pm purely for creative and deep strategic work ensures priorities happen before the day reacts to everyone else.
2. Screen-free breaks. Switching from a laptop to a mobile phone during a break does not rest the brain—it just creates lower-grade screen fatigue. Step outside or step away entirely.
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