View from the Office. 

I met up with Matt Ober at the Grayson Hotel in midtown. We were joined by Charles Poliacof from ModuleQ and Hayden Merz. Matt had the berries. Charles had the egg whites, spinach, wild mushroom and goat cheese. I had the omelet. Hayden had the breakfast sandwich. 

Matt is a San Diego-based general partner at the venture capital firm Social Leverage. He’s in town to meet with portfolio companies and potential investors.

Matt and I overlapped at Bloomberg fifteen years ago, but didn’t actually meet until years later when he was the chief data scientist at Third Point, Dan Loeb’s hedge fund. Before that he spent five years at WorldQuant. 

According to Matt, we’re entering into a frothy period for venture capital that will be characterized by a surge in mergers and acquisitions and crypto-related activity and investment. 

Crypto assets have jumped in the past few weeks, especially since the election because of expectations for less regulation. Bitcoin hit $90,000 today, up from $26,000 a year ago. 

The surge in Bitcoin, as well as other crypto currencies such as Solana and Ethereum, will likely be accompanied by startups building more crypto infrastructure. 

Fintech should benefit from a push for deregulation by the Trump administration as well as enthusiasm for the “degenerate economy,” a term coined by Matt’s Social Leverage partner, Howard Lindzon.

The “degenerate economy” captures the idea of the growing cultural acceptance and even celebration of what traditionally was seen as risky or frivolous financial behavior, such as speculative trading, as well as interest in memes, cryptos and NFTs. 

I recommend subscribing to Matt’s newsletter called The Rollup. He covers investments, technology, data and startups. 

You can connect with Matt via LinkedIn or DM me for a warm intro.