• Saturday

    • Watched parasite. Started slow, but was decent overall. Didn’t deserve 99% on rotten tomatoes and 8.6 on imdb, in my opinion.
    • Housing.
      • Talked with both roger and jay.
      • The government takes a cut when a house changes hands, of course. For a title, it’s transfer tax. For a co-op, it’s flip tax. This is 15k for my spot. Seller pays this (in 99% of cases).
      • Realtors. Seller pays both. Usually 2.5-3%.
      • Appraisal charges, $700. Round up to 1k.
      • Attorney fees, usually 2k.
      • Origination charges, the actual fees to the lender. 7/1 arm, used the cost waiver down to 2.25, 1.388-0.5=0.888, then multiply by loan total (615) to get $5,461 i have to pay at closing. Add 1240 static fee on top of that ($400 discount for already being a BoA member), for a total of 7k.
      • All said, this means I’m paying $10k in closing, on top of the 210 down.
      • Timing is phenomenal. Shit is about to hit the fan, banks tightening underwriting guidelines tomorrow. Need to lock in today.
      • BoA is waiving extension fees due to coronavirus, giving at least 30 extra days. So if we lock today, we’d get until July 17 to close nominally, and could extend to August 17 guaranteed.
      • Appraisal is going to be the long pole during this time.
      • Points. Basically giving the user flexibility in being able to buy down the interest rate by increasing the fee at closing, or reducing fee at closing for a higher interest rate. Just have to to math to see what’s best. As a senior lender, Roger can get 0.5% reduction. This is basically 3k less at closing.
      • Again, I don’t qualify for the rate reduction because I can’t put my shareworks money in merrill lynch.
      • 7/1 is a nice balance of risk between 5 and 10, although I’d be likely fine with 5.
      • To get the 0.5 point reduction at closing, emailed Roger:
        • Loan amount (615).
        • Rate lock period, 90 days.
        • Type, 5/1 arm.
        • Rate itself %.
        • Points (0).
        • Eg: Shopping for competitive rates, spoke with fsb, they offered 10/1 arm at this rate for 90 days on a loan amount of 600, and 0 points associated with locking that rate. Is this something that you can match or beat?
      • Consulted with both my attorney and lender, locked the rate. Again, summarized: 2.25%, 7/1 ARM, monthly is actually only 2351 (+ 1609 for maintenance + XXX for insurance), and ~10k closing costs + 210k down.
      • Wrote 2 templates for letter of recommendation; one professional and one personal. Sent the professional to Allie/Harner/Ken and personal to Eric/Derek/Jcriss.
      • Created an account with the IRS to download return transcripts, uploaded to the package manager. Absolute insanity that a co-op board believes themselves to be rightful accessories to this information. It should be an exchange between the lender and lendee, and not even to this depth. I have private equity in substantially higher risk, higher volatility, and higher-worth assets (SpaceX and Citadel), with more intimate business partnership, and the tax/finance/reference/application scrutiny is greater for the co-op on all fronts. Crazy.
      • Added signatures to the 2017 and 2018 returns.
      • Submitted main application section, now that I have all ref names.
      • Submitted 5 docs with seller sigs merged with mine.
  • Friday

    • Coronavirus.
      • NY lockdown extended until May 15th. There is an opening plan in place. Restaurants, gyms, movies, stadiums can open first with social distancing. Bars will come later, after an assessment period on the hospitalization trends.
      • >20m people are now unemployed in the US, ~14% of the workforce.
      • Gilead is testing a promising drug, Remdesivir. They jumped 13% in premarket.
      • How much of this is real? Not sure.
    • Portnoy lives over in south chelsea, 333 W 14th St.
    • “The code is read much more often than it is written.” – Guido
    • Went through the first few peps again. https://www.python.org/dev/peps/. Remember 8 is for style. The first handful are all process. Pep 20 is the zen of python.
    • Work.
      • As remote work accelerates in the professional world, we’re going to see changes in education as well. Classes will move primarily online. In-person attendance will fade. Universities, ivy prestige, degrees, much will become more widely accessible. This should have great benefit for the cost of education as well.
      • Promote the people that aren’t just doing their job well, but are lifting their colleagues up to do their jobs well in addition.
      • The manager should focus on outputs, the engineers should focus on outcomes.
    • Housing.
      • Spoke with Peter, started going over the board package. He’ll basically send me applications and documents. I’ll sign and submit the ones I can, and the more complicated ones (financial statement) we’ll go over together.
      • https://www.boardpackager.com/buildings/305_East_24th_Street.
      • The commitment letter from BoA will likely be the long pole here.
      • Homeowner’s insurance varies by state, premium is about 1000 in CA and 1300 in NY.
      • Started working on the board package. It’s ridiculous. Co-ops are so stringent, even more than the lender. Next purchase will be a condo.
        • House rules. Contract of sale. New rider about claw back. Cover letter to board. Consumer report release. Tenant fair chance, for disputes. Tax returns, pay stubs, offer letter. REBNY financial statement, source of funds, and all supporting documentation (account statements). Old landlord and rental history. Renovation policy. Seller had to declare no bed bugs and no lead paint. Emergency contact (Eric). Pet disclosure. Acknowledgement that a washer/dryer requires inspection and installation, $250 beyond raw unit costs. Carpet must cover 80% of main areas for noise.
        • The only real new info I had to supply for this one: 3 business references and 3 personal references. 6 total references, and I’ve been told this is on the low end compared to the average co-op. What a bold request for other people’s time.
    • Really want to start writing some new apps in go, rust, julia, but don’t have a ton of bandwidth right now. My next personal project will be forced to a new environment.
    • Fax (machine) is short for facsimile. Never knew. Weird.
    • “One and only” companies usually do quite well. Netflix, Skype, etc. Post-acquisition, you can see them reduce in popularity, like Skype -> Microsoft.
    • Eric bday.
      • Call in morning. Dream car changed from shelby cobra to gt40. Ford sold the rights, and the classics go for >1mil, but you can buy kits for under 200k: https://www.superformance.com/factory-models-gt40.
      • It’s called a gt40 because it’s 40 inches tall.
      • Zoom at night with everyone.
    • Started JRE 1459 with Tom O’Neill about manson, mk ultra, acid, mind control. So silly. It’s funny how uncertainty works in the mind. People outside out tech have wonderful imaginations for stuff that happens inside of tech. I wonder if I have similar ignorance/conspiracy about other professions without realizing it.
      • I am excited about the (real) future of brain interfaces like the ones neuralink is working on. Being able to simulate sensory input, or trigger physical output, based off an electrical signal that a program controls.
    • Speaking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY.
      • Start with promise of empowerment. 11am best time for a lecture. Cycle back. Have stopping points for wanderers to hop back on.
      • Don’t end with thank you or a contributors slide. Wrap up with something bold, stand out, say something conclusively. This IS the thing they’ll walk away with.
    • Headhunter for Amazon FinTech reached out.
      • They’re not doing FinTech in the pure sense, it was a bit misleading. Not writing trading/analysis apps or using quant strategies to move positions around; it’s just the software team that builds tools for the internal accounting/billing/automation/compliance/finance.
      • There is an AI/ML aspect in how budgets get allocated, but it’s small.
  • Thursday

    • Airline bailout is 25B. 70% is free (grants), the other 30% has to be paid back (loans). They’re not allowed to lay people off (and collect unemployment) until September.
    • Robinhood issued credits for the platform outage 5 weeks ago (I submitted a ticket since it impacted trade timing).
      • They gave me $3.26 hahaha.
    • NoSQL Weekly is being rebranded to Programmer Weekly to include more content, since they hadn’t sent one out in a longggg time.
    • Housing.
      • Co-ops usually close in 75-90 days from contract signing. Lender issues a commitment letter first, which can take up to 45 days. Then the full package gets submitted to the board for review, interview, which can take up to a monthly (they usually have meetings on a monthly cycle). Then buyer/seller each usually have a month to finalize anything they need to.
      • Signed the contract from my end. Partial execution. Let Roger and Jay know.
      • Added the account to wire money to (always a checking account). Sent over the 10%, NY obligation to include with the partially executed contract. $30 fee for same-day wire with BoA.
      • Limits for wire transfers are usually 100k per day per individual.
      • Full execution. We’re in business!
      • I have 45 days to obtain the commitment letter from BoA. I have prepped Roger already with all the underwriting prerequisites, so I hope to get it early.
      • Before locking in a rate, I need to make sure Jay approves since it typically expires within 60 days and closing can extend.
      • After we get the loan commitment letter, we have 5 days to submit the package to the board. I sent an email to Peter so that we can begin working on this.
      • That’s all I’m really tracking right now: (1) get commitment letter and lock in rate (ask Jay first to ensure 60 days) and (2) board package.
    • Sent out Eric birthday zoom link for everyone tomorrow night.
  • Wednesday

    • Google is shifting focus from tech/engineering to ad/marketing. They have a huge product suite. It’s less about continuing to build new stuff now, and more about increasing usage of existing products.
    • Citadel approved May for temp housing extension while I close on the co-op.
    • AAA is issuing a dividend to help with car insurance premiums, since no one is driving.
    • Thrasio buys rising businesses on Amazon, moving them over to their platform.
    • Opted to transfer the 2020 LiB ticket to 2022 with the free VIP upgrade.
    • Sent the seller, realtor, attorney, and management company to my lender for underwriting.
    • Reviewed the contract of sale. Couple questions. Sent notes to my attorney. Almost ready to sign.
  • Tuesday

    • Jay and Peter both disclosed a chip in the floor from the seller. No problem, I’ll fill it with wood putty, sand it down, and color it closely.
    • Air pollution has dropped 30% since the coronavirus quarantines, which is the level it was at 4 years ago.
    • AMZN is killing it, up to 2300.
    • Went into the office for the first time in a month. Standing desk was a treat, and was more productive. Grabbed the webcam for home use.
    • Laundry, groceries, chores.
    • Set up my webcam on the home desktop, with zoom and webex.
    • Housing contract is ready for my signature. Today was an extremely long day at work, but I should have time to review tomorrow.

  • Monday

    • Awesome collection of tools to build your own software projects: https://github.com/danistefanovic/build-your-own-x.
    • Starred maybe 5 other fantastic repos. Public APIs, system design, usual suspects.
    • 1-24 rule when someone is triggering you: Write 1 letter, then wait 24 hours. Don’t push it down and boil later, get it out and compose the hate mail, but don’t send it. Wait 24 hours. You’ll never send it then.
    • $14 SCE bill from hermosa, should be the last.
    • Downloaded Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
    • Caught up with the relocation coach from impact.
    • Felt bad watching the tiger king aftershow – they seemed more human than the show sensationalized them to be.
    • Zoomed with parents and brother’s fam for dad’s birthday.
    • You file an S-1 with the SEC to go public.
    • California is offering a credit for utility bills, understanding that everyone is quarantined home and usage will inevitably increase.
  • Sunday

    • Still weird splitting between this public blog and the private confluence blog, now that I’m spending most of my time on Citadel work. That blog has ~10x the content.
    • Finally finished parks and rec (for the first time).
    • Asked realtor about (1) seller’s desired moveout date and (2) when should I specify the parking spot need. Little too early to know both.
    • Reached out to Karen (Altair) about extending with ABA, since they prefer 21-day notice.
    • Tiger King aftershow too!
    • West world. I have no idea what’s going on but the classical renditions on the score are A+. Henry Mancini’s Theme from Love Story (the same sample in Immortal Technique’s Dance with the Devil), David Bowie.