Writing

Let's talk about goals first:

Keep reading, you'll find out why I missed so many.

I started the year, worrying about my grandfathers deteriorating health. He had several scares and I ended up having to go to Jacksonville a few times to visit him. He eventually passed. I wrote about it here. 

My mother in law had a major health complication this year that was pretty rough on my wife. It's always scary when someone you're related to has cancer. Luckily, modern medicine has made it possible to manage this complication with immunotherapy. She's in remission and looking very good.

Lots of people want to be a founder who raised money, was able to get lots of customers and build a strong business. What people talk about less is how once you have this, other people target you. My life was threatened repeatedly in 2024, from people demanding money, to people threatening to do deranged things to my wife and daughter. It was distressing, to say the least. I reached out to people more successful than me and they let me know this has happened to them and things will be OK. Everyone had different strategies but no one was without a plan.

I reached out to authorities; but none of them really took me seriously. One department literally took more than a month to get back to me. The timeline on the extortion threat was 7 days. I had to contract private services to properly understand the threats and ensure my families safety. When I spoke to police about it, they suggested I get some guns and learn how to use them. So I now own a bunch of guns, me and my wife both know how to use them.

The takeaway is simply that law enforcement is not effective. I'm fine with that actually, but I didn't know it before this year. However it was definitely reinforced with the multiple assassination attempts on Donald Trump, the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO, etc. So you must be very secure in your person if you want to live a long life.

This ordeal has really caused me to make sure I have extremely tight online presence. My children have not been, and will not be posted online. I don't talk about my location when I'm there. I don't talk about where I'm going to be, for the most part.  

I left QuickNode this year as well. It was not an easy decision, given I feel like there is still so much do to in crypto and more importantly, how much I really enjoyed working with Jose and Manuel on new products there. However, the company was in the best place it's ever been, with strong growth on the horizon and a management team that grew into their roles very nicely. When I coupled that with the fact that I think there is an opportunity in the access control space to modernize every building on planet earth, the timing was as right as it could be.

I am so excited to see where QuickNode goes under the leadership of my co-founders and even more excited to work on AccessGrid!

Lots of other stuff happened this year, including a trip to Dallas. Della (our dog) developing a mass that requires surgery, buying a new car, a trip to New York where I got to stay with an old friend, going to a few Heat games and enduring a Florida summer. Here just a few pics to remember the year.

I'm very much looking forward to doing 3 things in 2025:

Simple and straight forward for 2025. I'll see you on the flip side.