On this Thanksgiving day, in this most unconventional year, I have so much for which to be thankful.

First, I am thankful for my health and that of my family. My father was sick for my entire childhood, and I know that the greatest blessing is to wake up each day in good health.

I am thankful for my beautiful, loving wife and for our sweet, amazing son. The time we have together is the greatest time of all.

I am thankful to live in a time and place of peace.

I am thankful for my G-D given faculties, for the skills, abilities, and education that help me to enjoy the world around me.

I am thankful for our beautiful earth, the trees, water, air, animals, and plants that form a wonderful environment of breathtaking beauty and complexity.

I am thankful to be a Jew, for being blessed with a rich tradition, vibrant culture, and moral code that adds meaning to the sacred messiness of life.

I am thankful for my entire family, my brother, mother, in-laws, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and those no longer with us whose love and support I can always feel.

I am thankful for my friends near and far, for my colleagues all over the world, and for all those I meet whose individuality, diversity, and perspectives add richness to each day.

I am thankful for the material resources that enable us to live comfortably, provide freedom and flexibility for my family, and allow for the risks and options that create possibility and excitement.

I am thankful to be a citizen of the United States and to my ancestors who came to this country in pursuit of freedom. Our country – with its ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, where the inalienable rights of human beings outrank those of any sovereign – is worth appreciating and defending, even at a time where we are keenly attuned to its faults.

I am thankful for hope, where we believe in and work for a future that is better than our past. 

We are thankful for our myriad blessings and pray for happiness, health, freedom, peace, and prosperity for our Nation, and for the entire world.  

Last week, I participated in a fully-remote design sprint, a 5 day, 6+ hours/day, highly focused exercise to solve a problem and prototype a product with a cross functional group. As the week went on, I came to a surprising realization. The activity wasn’t worse for being remote. It was actually better. 

I’ve always been a huge proponent of in-person work, particularly for creative activities. I gain energy from the infectious enthusiasm of passionate people solving a problem together in close physical and temporal proximity. With the pandemic causing a shift to fully-remote work, I’ve tried to work as effectively, enjoyably, and collaboratively as possible. However, it seemed obvious to me that, even done well, remote work would always be somewhat lesser than ‘the real thing’. While trying hard every day to make it as effective as in-person work, I hadn’t considered the ways in which it could actually be better.

The design sprint succeeded in part due to a highly-competent and engaging facilitator. Surprisingly, though, the remote aspect was a major positive factor. The fact that all engagement was done over Zoom as well as a shared design space (mural.co) made it so everyone could produce real artifacts immediately visible to the full group. It truly felt like ‘working in public’. In addition, the fact that so much of the communication took place in writing made for a more diverse set of perspectives, whereas in-person meetings can be dominated by the loudest and most confident people. Ultimately, this resulted in a sharper framing of the problem, a more diverse set of potential solutions, and highly compelling output formed by the combined efforts of many talented individuals.

What other remote experiences could actually surpass their in-person equivalent? Rather than serving as a poor facsimile of the physical-world, what are the things that are uniquely possible in an online medium that we haven’t previously considered?

Voting is a sacred right and profound responsibility for all Americans. In addition to being the mechanism for choosing our elected leaders, it is a manifestation of our country’s founding ideals. In the American philosophy, power and legitimacy come from the people – not from a sovereign monarch or religious authority. We hold this power as innate to our humanity, with a natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As people hold the seat of power, we affirmatively choose to delegate some of this to a government, in order to do collectively what it would be impossible to do alone. As such, we don’t vote in order to choose leaders to rule over us. We vote to hire the most talented and dedicated people we can find to work for us. We must not take this philosophy or this right for granted, as it is quite rare over the span of human history. Vote to hire the best people we can to lead this incredible country. Vote to hold accountable those who haven’t done their job and who’ve violated this sacred trust. Here’s to a peaceful, fair, and decisive election.

“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it”

– Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot

These words appear in the Mishna, the first major work of Jewish Rabinnic Literature.  The passage quoted is found in so many places that inspire and give meaning to people.  It is of particular relevance to those of us who work for change – in business, politics, science, or culture.  As entrepreneurs, we tend to think ahead – very far ahead.  We have a sense for some future version of the world and the steps we can take today to move it closer to that imagined reality.  Change, of course, is risky business.  Most things, even those that are legitimately deemed a success, seldom follow the course imagined at their outset.  And if that spark of creativity originally emanated from your own mind, you likely harbor all the knowledge of what didn’t work out.  You know every way reality diverged from your plans, and you sometimes dwell on what more could have been accomplished.

I’ve heard this from very successful entrepreneurs, ones who made millions from selling their companies and who are, by all accounts, incredibly successful.  A common refrain: “it could have been so much bigger”.  It’s much easier to be right about the ‘what’ of the future than the ‘when’, and some changes that seem obvious actually take a generation or more.  I sometimes think this way about Orchard, the company that I and my partners started in 2013 and sold to Kabbage in 2018.  Our mission at the outset was to revolutionize the world of lending by bringing advanced data analytics, automated trading, and real-time, liquid secondary markets to an industry where so much was still done by hand or over the phone.  To us, it was obvious that at some point in the future, the origination, funding, and secondary trading of consumer loans would be completely automated and data-driven.  This would lead to increased access to capital for people and business on better, fairer, more transparent terms.  And so we started the work.  

Orchard was a success in many ways.  We hired incredibly talented and passionate people who advanced their careers with Orchard and have gone on to do great things.  We built impressive and useful technology.  We raised the bar for data science and analytics in online lending, and we increased consciousness about fintech and the transformation of financial services.  While we had an exit to Kabbage, we didn’t “finish the work”, at least not as originally conceived.  We didn’t build an independent billion-dollar company.  But the work, at least as far as the mission, still continues.  There are so many amazing people in fintech who are doing great things. The potential for change and lasting impact is now larger than ever.

This principle is not limited to business – far from it.  Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision, courage, and voice sparked incredible change in civil rights, but he was assassinated long before so many of his dreams could be realized. Theodor Herzl dreamed of a free Jewish homeland but died in 1904, long before the establishment of the modern state of Israel. Looking back again to the Bible, the great prophet Moses died after 40 years wandering through the desert, right before the Jews were able to cross into the promised land of Israel.

Personally, I confront this dynamic when thinking of the many problems that exist presently in our world.  The conflicts and tragedies seem so large, so intractable, that the seeming impossibility of solving the entire problem makes taking a single step difficult.  Where to begin?  If I can’t solve the problem, can I do anything to help?  Can I help move anything in the right direction?  How can I make a difference?  Again, it is helpful to remember.  We are not obligated to complete the work, but we may not neglect it.  Anything we can do for a just cause has merit.  Any contribution or impact moves things in the right direction.  We must not underestimate the impact or importance of our actions, however small they may seem. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, even the giants.

Indeed, the march of progress is long and takes place over many generations.  Consider another quote, from one of our nation’s founding fathers:

“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”

– John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, 1780

John Adams was a founder of the United States, but he didn’t complete the work.  He moved things forward, made an impact, and laid the groundwork for those that would come after. Our great nation is still imperfect, and there is more work to be done. Let us not shy away from work we may not complete. Forward progress is more important than exact timing, and sometimes, the most important thing is to begin.

To read the full post, head to https://www.ocrolus.com/blog/auto-loan-market-reveals-underlying-trends-in-consumer-lending/

Cars and credit are two of my favorite topics.  Last week, I spoke to Ed Garsten at Forbes to share thoughts on tightening underwriting standards in auto finance, along with the deeper trends driving evolution in consumer credit more broadly.  Amidst higher delinquency rates, uncertainty around post-pandemic consumer financial health, and the growing insufficiency of traditional underwriting methods, auto lenders have tightened their criteria for new borrowers, and new origination has decreased. The implications of this trend are not limited to the automotive industry.  All forward-thinking consumer lenders will need to revamp their underwriting practices, with an emphasis on broader data sources, real-time information, and more segmented and personalized assessment strategies.