Circles

My old CFO, who interviewed me for the job, joked about how mortgage finance is a very "incestuous circle"- everyone either knows everyone else, or knows someone who knows that someone else.

A very true observation. Although to a large extent we interact with the world in these series of at-times overlapping circles: my circle of high school friends, college friends, dragonboat friends, families, professional friends, economists, ice hockey friends- each circle tight knit, insular and a community onto itself. And we share more with our competitors within that circle than we recognize. The football players who beat each other up during any given game have more in common with each other than the fans or students they nominally represent.

I think that is why the suicide of David Kellermann, CFO of Freddie Mac, bugs me, above and beyond the fact that death bothers me in general. I don't actually know the guy, and we are competitors, but he is someone who is in the same industry, who live and breath the same data, and whom I have shared experience by virtue of living through this surreal and crazy financial crisis at the eye of the storm.

RIP