NBA Finals Game 1; The Wire Turns 20; Fintech Nexus Recap, New Books for June
Stretch Four Insights Volume 26
Happy Saturday,
It’s NBA finals week in San Francisco and the energy is as strong as ever. This is my sixth spring in San Francisco with Golden State participating in four of those finals so I am experiencing this excitement 66% of the time and still cannot afford tickets. Pretty damning, but at last check for Game 1, the lowest ticket price was $700. Sounds like I will be watching from home or my local watering hole with the guys.
I took last weekend off as it was Memorial Day Weekend and I had just spent three days in NYC at a conference. This week I want to highlight a few things I’ve been reading, thinking, and listening to:
The Finals Recap
The Wire turned 20 years old this week
Fintech Nexus recap & why conferences are a way to win customers
New books for June
Tax and other news
Finals Game 1 Recap & Going at it with Shannon Sharpe on Twitter
I got into somewhat of a back and forth with Shannon Sharpe aka “Unc” on Twitter. My spite was honestly not with Shannon, but he is a culprit to his co-host on the FS1 hit show Undisputed with Skip Bayless. Skip is an OG in sports media but I feel his takes have reached further and further away from reality to the crazy world of clickbait media, trolling, and just outright bad takes. He’s become a troll and it’s terrible for the game of basketball specifically.
He and Stephen A Smith on ESPN are generally always critical and have some of the worst takes daily on ESPN and FS1 respectively.
I am not alone in my spite as Kevin Durant tweeted this early this week in response to another clickbait driven take by Stephen A Smith:
I do not have time to watch Shannon and Skip ramble for three hours daily, but after game 1 I saw a viral clip on Twitter. I clicked on the link and Skip is rambling on and on about Steph Curry not being clutch and giving him an F grade for his game 1 performance.
Skip has a personal beef with a lot of players and in this particular take, he related Steph’s game 1 to the 2016 finals when the Warriors lost a 3-1 lead to LeBron. It was clickbait at its finest. I then tweeted this:
Shannon shot back quickly with this response:
and followed up on my response again with this:
Why would Shannon respond to me twice?
I think the pressure on these performers in mainstream sports media businesses is heating up and people are starting to question a lot of the content. Sure, the goal is to drive eyeballs to your show, but some of these platforms are so blatantly trying to get clicks and it takes away from the game in my opinion. It’s becoming painfully obvious.
The other side is that players are building their own media platforms, speaking for themselves, and not speaking with mainstream media outlets. Why listen to Shannon and Skip talk about Steph Curry’s legacy when players for the Warriors (Draymond & Iguodala) have their own podcasts where they break down the game themselves. Debating is cool, but the legacy debates are so tired. Cover the game, make objective-based takes on what actually happened, and do not be so lazy.
It is going to be very interesting to see how things shake out. Stephen A and Skip Bayless built their brands on a very opinionated debate format, but so many of the takes are becoming predictable, and as independent media grows it will be interesting to see how the major networks keep the numbers up, from what I understand their show has been losing ratings in droves and Skip now has to do a one hour show explaining his critiques.
The Wire Turns 20 years old
‘The Wire’ at 20: ‘This Show Will Live Forever’
The Wire turned twenty this week and it still boggles my mind as to how great the show is. Now I was substantially late in watching the show from beginning to end but I finally got through all five seasons this year. It is definitely a once-in-a-generation show that needs more love as it grows old. Unfortunately, I think it is such a good show because of how it portrayed the streets of Baltimore and far too many American cities in real time. When I started my first business I was in the heart of West Baltimore and I have never seen anything like it nor do I ever want to again. I think we have had a renassainance of TV shows recently and all of the shows are not possible without The Wire. Right now I am enjoying We Own This City, a follow-up on HBO. Long live the Wire.
Fintech Nexus Recap
I had the opportunity to take my first work trip last week to the Fintech Nexus Conference at the Javits Center in New York City. It was a power-packed two days where I meet with prospects, and potential partners and spread the gospel of ModernTax and the Stretch Four newsletter. I had great conversations across the board. The conference brought 4,000 people together during a time when fintech has seen a lot of scrutinies.
Equinox Hotel is everything I expected it to be and more: I attend a kickoff happy hour hosted by Sunil Madhu’s company Instnt. It was a great event but I honestly went to check out the hotel. It was beautiful and true to the brand, the rooms average $1,000/night price tag. Equinox has been a luxury brand for quite some time and it would be interesting to see if they will replicate the hotel experience in other cities.
Event planning for startups is a huge advantage if you can do it: ModernTax got a last-minute invite to Fintech Nexus and we got a free booth in the Startup Innovation area. It was an extremely quick turnaround time to plan and organize our booth but we made the most of it. Conferences are always hit or miss with how many leads you’ll walk away with but I did pick up some good tips on how I will approach an event next time. One of my founder friends said his team closed five new deals on the floor so big things are possible with the right amount of planning and a data-driven approach to events.
The cooling fundraising environment in the startup community is overhyped: If you look at the startup news it is all gloom and doom. But at industry conferences, you get to see under the hood of specific industries and talk to the actual buyers and decision makers at companies. This conference showcased a lot of service providers i.e. technology companies that sell to lenders, banks, and fintech companies, and one thing we’re clear: there are still so many new products to be built and sold. While valuations and public market caps are down there is still a large demand for new products and services. I was encouraged to see this and it shows I should spend more time at industry-specific events, conferences, and communities. Many founders are mostly distracted by venture capital-related content, media, and events. Time is better spent reading an industry report or participating in a webinar than reading Sequoia’s 54-page report on the current market.
New books
While reading books for pure volume is not my goal, I do want to ramp up what I am reading now that Whitney and I have reached some form of routine with our little guy, Cain (just shy of 3 months). He slept over eight hours twice this week for the first time since he has come home. I like to read both the hard copy where I can skip around chapters and listen to audible. Here are my goals for the month. Check out my readings in real-time on GoodReads, and if anyone knows of a better app please let me know ; ).
Finished in May
Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever
Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool
Starting in June
The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy
Finishing in June
The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail
Tax & Tech News
The IRS’s crypto tax partner, ZenLedger, raises $15 million Series B
ZenLedger competes with TaxBit and CoinTracker and now also partners with the IRS.
The IRS deems crypto tracking as a huge priority with the limited budget they have.
It is interesting to see businesses highlight partnerships with the IRS while also offering products to consumers to optimize tax savings.
Intuit’s earnings are so good it’s a scandal
The company’s fiscal third quarter is tax season, always a boom time for Intuit. Revenues of $5.6 billion were up 35% year-over-year (29% without Mailchimp)
He has a point: Intuit seems to have a recession-resistant business model. In 2008, the company outperformed the broad stock market, and Intuit has since diversified into services, which customers need in good times and bad.
What’s Next
New podcast dropping here on Monday
#work
Back to the trenches,
Matt