Who Hasn't Changed?

I won’t lie, I’ve been buying Opendoor stock. Some might see it as a meme stock, but with a recent CEO change, strong retail backing, and its HQ based in Tempe, I decided to get in. With how wild the last month has been, I realized I needed a better way to track my gains (or losses) so I could invest more intelligently. That’s when I found Snowball Analytics, a portfolio tracker I’ve been using lately.

It’s the cleanest interface I’ve seen. It pulls in all my investments and shows daily performance in a way that actually helps me make better decisions. I’m glad they’re sponsoring this newsletter, and if you’re investing too, I recommend giving it a try.

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I was born and raised in Arizona. For years, the local tech and startup scene was my entire frame of reference. I was deep in it. The meetups, the community, the small wins and frustrations. All of it inside the Arizona bubble. I knew, intellectually, that there was more out there from the content I consumed, but I couldn’t feel it. The outside world—Silicon Valley, New York, the broader venture scene—felt distant. Like watching a movie through a foggy window.

Then in 2019, everything changed.

I got accepted into Jason Calacanis’ accelerator and met over 100 investors in real life. I started my podcast and, over time, interviewed 950 founders and investors. Ninety-nine percent of them were from outside Arizona. Many had built or backed billion-dollar companies. Then I launched Seedscout, where I moved from observing to operating. I was helping founders get funded. Making intros. Advising. Backchanneling. I was dealing originating and deal making.

I finally saw the world I had only imagined. My aperture widened. My frame of reference changed. I now had a direct line into how things worked in SF, LA, NY, Miami, and beyond. But I never left Arizona, which led to a very strange dynamic.

Arizona’s tech scene hasn’t shifted much in its core DNA. There are new players, new orgs, and a lot of fresh energy. But many of the same patterns remain. And since I never physically left, to some folks, I still look like the same person too. The one who used to speak up in defiance. The one who had a lot of opinions with little backing. The one who, to them, hasn’t changed.

But I have changed. A lot.

And I’ve come to realize that if people don’t have the context to see what I’ve built, or who I’ve built it with, they won’t know how to place me. The names I drop in passing don’t mean much if they’re not recognized. The signals don’t land if they aren’t understood. It’s not their fault. They just haven’t widened their aperture quite like I have.

Sometimes I wonder if being a local, someone who stayed, makes it harder to be seen in a new light. If I had moved away and come back, maybe it would be different. But I didn’t. I stayed. And while my world expanded, many people here are still viewing me through the lens of the past.

And that’s okay. It’s part of the journey.

But here’s what I know: I’ve evolved. I’m more connected, more informed, and more capable than I’ve ever been. And I plan to keep growing, to keep reinventing myself, every five years until I’m in the ground.

Can you say the same?