I’ve Joined Monarch Money!

I left Quora about 5 months ago. Last week, I joined Monarch Money. I’d like to talk about why I made those decisions, and I hope this will be useful for others who are thinking through their careers.

Leaving Quora

Last year, my wife and I had a baby (little Ahmed Osman Ahmed Osman Ahmed Osman—true story), and something clicked. I felt like suddenly, the opportunity cost of my time had increased dramatically. Any time not spent with my wife and baby had better damn well be worth it. So I decided to take some time off, and left my role at Quora.

Quora is a great company, and I loved my role and my team. I managed Product Engineering, which meant I got to work with a group of really intelligent, passionate and impact-oriented peers to build a product that helps people learn and share knowledge. But while Quora as a company is relatively lean compared to its consumer internet peers, and still has many challenges to solve, it’s a little more mature than I’d like.

I wanted to have a little more skin in the game. I wanted to handle very different challenges every day. I wanted to both think about both high-level strategic problems and build product in a hands-on way.

Time Off—But Not Really

When I left Quora, but I didn’t really know what was next. I decided I’d spend some time “figuring things out” before committing to anything.

First of all, I highly recommend anyone who can afford to take a work hiatus do so. I realize I’m extremely fortunate to be able to, and that most people in the world cannot, but I also believe that there are some people who can but believe they can’t. For me, it took a few conversations with my wife and analysis of our financials and our budget, and that gave me confidence (more on this piece later).

In any case, if you can afford it, time off is not as scary as it seems, and you get to spend time thinking, relaxing, reading, meeting new people, and/or spending time catching up with old friends. It’s almost tragic that most of us need to work full-time jobs that swallow our lives and don’t really us spend enough time on those really valuable things.

I wanted to make good use of this time, so I came up with a set of criteria on things I would spend time on during my hiatus (in addition to time with family):

• Flexibility: So I could be as physically and emotionally present as possible with my wife and baby.
• Learning: Advancing my personal and professional knowledge.
• Exploration: Help me explore what I wanted to spend time on next.

Here’s what materialized:

• I helped the San Francisco Engineering Leadership Community organize its first annual full-day conference; we had over 30 speakers/panelists and 550+ attendees (engineering leaders from across the world).
• I worked with Holloway to help write their Guide to Technical Recruiting and Hiring. It’s not published yet, but I’m really excited about it since it includes wisdom from over 40 of the best recruiters and managers we could find.
• I consulted and advised various startups (some in the SF Bay Area, some in Egypt).
• I read. A lot. About psychology, parenting, management, product development, systems thinking… and much more.
• I met with dozens of companies or founders to explore roles working with them.

Each of those was a highly rewarding experience.

My Criteria

Over time, I began to develop a set of criteria about what I wanted to work on next.

• It would have to be early stage. I wanted “skin in the game”, and a sense of ownership. I wanted to get in as early as possible, but having just had a baby, was anxious about joining too early.
• It had to be mission-driven. I’m a lot happier when I’m working on something that I think has a really positive impact on the world. I can work harder, and it’s easier for me to hire and motivate smart passionate people.

Not Silicon Valley-parody “making the world a better place” mission-driven.

• In particular, the mission needed to work on a system level, by creating good feedback loops (virtuous cycles) or breaking bad feedback loops (vicious cycles). Problems that are both systemic on a societal-level and on an individual-level get extra points.
• I needed to really get along with the team. Not just superficial chemistry, but we needed to respect each others’ strengths, and we needed to be aligned on values: the way we think about the world, and the way we wanted to build a company.

Monarch Money

Along the way, I met Val and the rest of the Monarch Money team. It ticked all the boxes.

First, money is a systemic problem, even (especially?) in the US. Money is the number one sources of stress for Americans (there are actually several surveys that show this). Beyond all the obvious effects, it can cause anxiety, depression, broken relationships, and a lot more damage. On the other hand, in 9 in 10 Americans say that “nothing makes them happier or more confident than feeling like their finances are in order.”

On a societal level, it’s an epidemic. People like to cite facts that 40% of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency. And it’s persistent. Income inequality and wealth inequality are growing, and if you have a problem with money, chances are your children and their children might share that problem in the future.

Second, though I’m joining Monarch really early, a lot has been de-risked. Val has a lot of experience in the personal finance space (he was part of the original team that built Mint.com). There’s still a lot to figure out, but he, Jon, and the rest of the team had put a lot of thought into the personal finance space and the product we plan to build. We’re also all repeat entrepreneurs, so, hopefully, we’ve learned enough to avoid making mistakes on the easy challenges, and can focus instead on the hard ones!

Finally, in terms of alignment in values, I felt like we really clicked. Any company can claim to be “mission-driven”, but you need to spend time with its team to really uncover if they are. Monarch Money is mission-driven. We all have really high ambitions for the level of impact we want to have on the world. But we want to build a company that’s positive for all stakeholders, including the team, our customers, and our investors. We’ve had really thoughtful conversations about ensuring that our business model is as free of possible of any conflicts in incentives as possible (which I think is crucial in an area like personal finance), and really helps people improve their personal finances.

People react to the stress of money in different ways. Some people want to budget every last cent. Others don’t want to think about their finances at all (that is, until life happens and they suddenly have to). I think most of us want peace of mind: to find that balance between living our current lives (without stress, regret, or shame) while knowing that our future is secure. There are a lot of products and offerings out there to help people with their finances, but I don’t think anyone has cracked it yet. I’m psyched to be part of a team aiming to solve this problem.

Val, Jon, Mason, Laura: thanks for having me as part of the team!