Books to kick off 2022, The Q.S.B.S. tax hack, private equity > venture capital, the Memphis Grizzlies, and plant-based dieting
Stretch Four Insights Volume 9
Happy Saturday everyone and happy new year. I plan to get around to making collard greens and black-eyed peas at some point today to keep with the southern tradition while I am here on the west coast.
This week I am sharing my first three reads of 2022, an interesting tax article from the WSJ, two audio pieces I enjoyed, the Memphis Grizzlies being my League Pass team of the week, and as a bonus, I am sharing my reasoning on moving to a 100% plant-based diet for 2022.
Like many people, I caught a nasty bug of COVID-19 last week, so Whitney and I were hunkered down in quarantine and spent Christmas alone (but with just each other) this year.
With that said, let's get into it. And if you want to hear more or spread the word, subscribe and tell your friends!
📚 Three Books to Kick off 2022:
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty | Patrick Keefe
This book fits the script for what I like to read. While I am not so familiar with the Sackler family I am familiar with the catastrophic opioid crisis that is ripping through America. This family is one of the richest in the world that you won’t find being covered by mainstream media so I have high expectations for this read which I plan to complete over a getaway in Hawaii with the wifey.
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance | Hanif Abdurraqib
There is a lot of people who believe that if you follow black culture you will see what rises to the top of American culture in general. Take, for example, a brief scroll through TikTok and you will see how much black creators set the trends in top videos and audio on the app. In this book, Abdurraqib writes about how black performance is “inextricably woven” in all of American culture. This book comes with rave reviews and I am looking forward to how author Abdurraqib weaves it all together.
Kings of Crypto: One Startup’s Quest to Take Cryptocurrency out of Silicon Valley and onto Wall Street | Jeff Roberts
It seems to be a bit late for a revisionist history of Coinbase and founder Brian Armstrong but I like to see the story told. We are now thirteen years into the Bitcoin white paper and it seems like every day is a new year of progress. In an effort to dig more into the Coinbase story I’ll be reading this book.
📰 One Article:
A Lavish Tax Dodge for the Ultrawealthy Is Easily Multiplied
This was a fancy piece exposing tax dodges by the ultra-elite tech founders and venture capitalists. It intrigued me as a founder of why we all risk our careers and lives (joking) to launch a startup. With what seems like an uptick in startup founding, it was interesting to see how the founder of Roblox, the big tech winner of 2021, maneuvered their taxes to save millions in capital gains taxes by passing along their stock to their family members.
📻One Podcast:
Orlando Bravo - The Art of Software Buyouts | Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
I am becoming more and more intrigued by the private equity and buyout space. This timely podcast provides insights from one of the top software private equity leaders Orlando Bravo. He shares some details on the process of how the firm he founded Thomas Bravo, with $70 billion under management, has been able to successfully evaluate companies. Bravo is very informative, and I think there should be many more discussions like this around how private equity works as opposed to venture capital. These PE firms are the real winners in technology in the past twenty years even more so than venture capitalists because of how quickly they are able to return large amounts of money.
#️⃣ One Twitter Spaces:
Acquired x Not Boring x The Generalist NYE Special
Mario Gabriele, Packy Mccormick, David Rosenthal, and Ben Gilbert have emerged as the millennial leaders of a new breed of content creators who independently write, produce long-form business content. Highlights included Rosenthal and Packy McCormick boasting about how they have been able to participate in over 50 investments with the Angel List platform as solo capitalists. Sci-fi books also became a topic of conversation after the hosts mentioned they collectively read an average of 20 sci-fi novels a month. There was lots of Web3 chatter. To conclude, these four guys are leading a new type of creator format and I will be following their content closely in 2022.
🏀 One Team:
The Memphis Grizzlies
I am a three-year NBA League Pass subscriber and I’ll be putting the time and money spent on this subscription to highlight a team of the week. I’m kicking it off with the Memphis Grizzlies. The Grizzlies went 4-0 this week, won on the road in Phoenix, and closed out the week at home with wins over the Lakers and Spurs. They are the only team in the league with wins over both the Warriors and Suns. Ja Morant is the star of this team but doesn’t sleep with the emergence of Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. who have both been playing top-level basketball. Currently, the team sits in fourth place in the West and they are one of the most exciting teams to watch right now on League Pass.
🥗 One Bonus:
On Plant-Based Dieting
I have been inspired to fully dive into a plant-based diet starting January (after Whitney and I return from vacation in Hawaii). My reasoning includes general dietary health concerns, overall improvements to energy and being more active, and maintaining a consistent weight throughout the year. The primary resource that has helped inspire my action is How Not to Diet.
Combatting dietary concerns
Overall my health is above average for my age but there are a few concerns I’d like to course correct and that includes cholesterol and blood pressure. Both have consistently been higher during my last three physicals.
I’ve also noticed how the gut and digestive health is directly correlated with my diet. Of course, I could get by with a Mediterranean diet which my PCP recommended, but why not take it a step further and eliminate animal products from my diet completely?
I’m looking forward to seeing how these actions can improve my problem areas over time and will be closely monitoring with blood panels.
More energy = more activity
There are lots of reasons to want to improve your energy in general, but 2022 is a year where it is even more important for me.
My regimen picks up tenfold this year with our little one arriving in April.
My schedule will take a big adjustment:
Before children schedule: wake up for work, eat dinner late, maybe stay up to watch some TV, catch up on sleep on the weekends
After children schedule: TBD
With these changes, energy will be critical. While I have already started to cut back substantially on alcohol (with Whitney being pregnant this has happened more naturally versus any formal commitments), moving to a plant-based diet should increase my energy and allow me to still maintain a fairly aggressive five-day a week weight training routine plus three days of cardio exercise routine.
Maintaining a consistent weight throughout the year
This is likely the most reflective result I am looking for by moving to a plant-based diet. My weight tends to fluctuate through the year. Take 2020, I started the year at 247.2 pounds and I am ending the year at 236. While it looks like I lost a net of 11 pounds, I got up to as high as 245.5 pounds as late as November 28th and my big drop in December was more correlated with COVID versus a natural weight loss through diet and exercise.
What this means is despite an aggressive workout regimen there are some inconsistencies that allow me to have big spikes of weight gain throughout the year. What I can practice for certain is diet.
By removing animal products from my diet I expect to keep a strong baseline and eventually reach my goal of around 225-230 pounds with a 22-24 BMI and an 11-13% body fat.
What's Next?
Whitney and I take off for Hawaii on Wednesday for nearly a week of island bliss. We’re excited to disconnect from the world and reconnect with each other.
Upon our return, it’s back to work for Q1 2022. Happy new year to you all.
If you are new here:
Check out last week's long-form piece on how I got scammed in my first foray into Web3.
My long-form piece on new startup Column Tax.
Lastly, if you found this newsletter interesting and know someone else who would, please forward it to them or tell them to subscribe here. It would make my day if you do!
Back to the trenches.
Best,
Matt