Buying Your Next House

When you look for a new role, it is easy to focus on the job description: the day to day tasks, the title, the compensation. That is like focusing only on the house: the number of bedrooms, the layout, the backyard - those all matter, but the house sits on a street, in a neighborhood, in a city, in a state, in a country. Each layer shapes your experience, often as much as (or more than) the house itself.

In fact, I’d argue that the house (eg, the role) is the most interchangeable unit, the least important part of the consequential decision that’s being made. When I took a job at Riot, I figuratively bought myself a “smaller and less comfortable” house than I was previously inhabiting, but that house was on far superior land. I did the same at a16z, where I went from managing a team of ~70 to managing a team of no one.

The street is your team. These are the people you interact with every day, the ones who make work feel energizing or draining. This includes your manager. The street really is important. You need to live on a street where you like your neighbors. Having a manager I respected and who respected me was one of the most advantageous arrangements I’ve ever experienced at work (s/o to my guy Danker).

The neighborhood is the product group or division you sit inside. A great house on a street full of friendly neighbors can still be tough if the neighborhood has no grocery store, poor schools, or constant construction. In the same way, you can love your role and team but feel boxed in if your product group has no momentum or resources. If you work in a big company, and your product group is losing, you are also losing. When I reflect on my time at Riot, this would have been a team like Legends of Runeterra. No shade, they tried their hardest and made a game for players, and to critical acclaim, but it was a commercial failure. There is no other way to put it. You do not want to be on the team that is bonfiring dollars.

The city is the company. Its culture, brand, and leadership determine whether you feel proud to live there, whether outsiders see it as thriving, and whether there is long term investment in infrastructure. The team might be amazing. The job might be amazing. But the company might have just been purchased by a PE firm that is certain to put extreme pressure on generating margins, squeezing every dollar out of their investment, likely at the expense of your upward mobility or income potential. Or… the company might have just raised billions of dollars, or have a product that is just raining high margin profits, and the money is flowing like water over the Niagara falls. You want to be in the latter context. Raises, promotions, resources… they all abound. This is how you get your house on the beach.

Then there is the state, which is the broader industry you are in. You could be in the nicest city imaginable, but if the entire state is in decline, opportunities shrink and property values fall. A stellar role in a strong company will not feel the same if the industry as a whole is consolidating, commoditizing, or shrinking. When I got into the gaming industry at 25 (13 years ago!!!), the entire industry was expanding at a rapid clip - I was very much in the right state. But now, the industry is facing a bit more complexity, and it’s not entirely clear I’d move to this state in 2025.

Beyond the state there is the literal country. This is the macro environment: the economy, regulation, geography, and even global perception. You may be in the right industry and company, but if the country itself is experiencing political instability, major economic downturns, or restrictive policies, growth becomes harder no matter how strong the local layers are… No matter how hard you work, or what company you choose, if you decide to work for an EU-based company right now, you are accepting a likely lesser-degree of upward potential. You may want to live in Canada, and that’s fine, but Canada graduates unicorns at a fraction of the rate of the US, etc.

Just as living in a thriving neighborhood in a struggling country can feel precarious, working in the best possible company in a difficult macro environment will shape your career in ways you cannot ignore.

The lesson: do not just evaluate the house. The role is the LEAST important of all of the layers. It is the most mutable. Invert the decision-making process. Decide on your country, then your state, then your city, and so on.