Chase Garbarino

I spoke with @Computerworld about #QuantumCities this summer. America must embrace technology and revitalize its cities to secure its future. #AmericanDynamism computerworld.com/video/4015519/…

The smartest move in business often looks wrong at the start.

@harsh_abhonkar @HqOapp Cool, sent to our marketing team

Redesigned @HqOapp homepage Before vs After

The REX Effect #2: Cities are economic operating system Daily Signal Every great city in history functioned as a platform: it concentrated talent, capital and exchange: ideas, interaction, currency. Modern cities added more sophisticated infrastructure - but many do not realize the the design of computing platforms can greatly enhance city design: we can more deliberately design positive exchange with certain system-level coordination. AI doesn't fix this automatically. It amplifies whatever system already exists. If the system is fragmented or misaligned, AI will accelerate that. Reframe Cities don't become "smart" by adding sensors or dashboards. They become competitive by aligning physical infrastructure, data and incentives around healthy demand outcomes. Commercial real estate isn't adjacent to this problem. It is the physical layer of economic exchange in the city's operating system. The cities that win will treat buildings as coordinated nodes (yes, with privacy design from Day 1) - not isolated assets. Operator Takeaway If I were a mayor (my wife often reminds me I am not) - or a major landlord - I'd stop asking, "What tech should we add?" And start asking, "What shared outcomes should buildings and systems enable?" That's where leverage lives and where cities and CRE can coordinate. Close The next generation of city winners won't just digitize services. They'll design experiences people actively choose to participate in.

“Twin” - love this concept

The REX Effect #4: Areté & Leadership Leadership compounds through identity alignment to daily habits. Motivation is a depreciating asset in many cases. What remains is identity - how leaders see themselves and what that identity permits under pressure. The most effective leaders don't rely on energy or inspiration overwhelmingly. They rely on standards and the habits of meeting those standards. Reframe This is one of the many ideas I've taken from the book Arete. Arete is an ancient word that essentially means excellence of character expressed through action. In other words, it is living up to your highest potential - consistently. In practice, I think for leaders it shows up quietly: Telling the truth when it's uncomfortable Taking ownership without theatrics Doing the things you may not want to, and serving others when it isn't easy, every day Personally, the book has had a big impact on me. I received it as a gift from a close family friend who was the first woman to achieve one of the highest levels of military achievement (I'm not saying what level or branch because I'm not sure what's allowed..). Since I graduated from Hamilton College in 2007, I've been developing my own type of personal operating system from a collection of readings (Extreme Ownership, Atomic Habits, Grit, a litany of startup and technology books, biographies, etc.) and Arete is the first that truly pulled it all together for me. They have also built an app that helps you implement their system (Heroic App) and have created a network of certified coaches. The company's mission is to get 51% of planet earth living up to their full potential by the year 2050. What a profoundly awesome mission. Operator Takeaway I can't emphasize how much I have loved the Arete book and Heroic app. They have helped provide me with clarity on every decision I make throughout my day and build habits that I hope will enable me to be who I'm trying to be in life. It has also opened my eyes to where I was falling down as a leader. I'm someone who can be maniacally focused on goal achievement and forget that the greatest accomplishments are ultimately about the ride and the people you are on it with. Close Progress isn't built by heroics - it is built by identity-consistent days, stacked patiently. Every Friday I will try to share something I have learned from implementing the system and the journey it is taking me on. Disclaimer: I do not pretend to have it figured out, but I love the process of trying to figure it out.

The REX Effect #3: Execution breaks down where Tenant Lifecycle ownership is unclear Daily Signal Most CRE Experience strategies aren't failing because they are wrong. They aren't driving easily measurable value because CRE teams are siloed and there is no shared definition of success across the Tenant Lifecycle. CRE is especially vulnerable as an industry because of the distance between suppliers (landlords) and customers (tenants): 1) Brokers sit between decision-makers 2) Gatekeepers sit between landlords and daily users and 3) No one owns the full relationship or specific stages of the relationship end-to-end. Reframe This is why an operating system mapped to the Tenant Lifecycle matters more than any individual product or feature (yes, AI included). A lifecycle-oriented operating model creates shared truth: What Tenant Health actually means? Who owns each stage? How progress is measured? Without this, even great teams are grasping at smoke - trying to drive outcomes without a common frame. Operator Takeaway Start with three questions: How do we define and measure tenant "health"? Who owns the different stages of the Tenant Lifecycle and how do we measure this progress? Where is this reviewed and is it reviewed regularly? Close Experience strategy is too focused on amenities and not enough on outcomes. Clear ownership at defined Tenant Lifecycle milestones is how positive tenant outcomes are actually delivered.

The REX Effect #1 - Demand in CRE no longer follows space. It follows Experience. Daily Signal #1 In 1998 Joe Pine presciently described the arc every major industry would go through: commodity --> packaged good --> service --> Experience. Commercial Real Estate is mostly stalled out somewhere between goods and services - with COVID and the interest rate cycle moving organizations back down the Experiential evolution graph in many ways. Tenants and employees have moved on anyways. Reframe Demand hasn't disappeared from office or cities more largely. It simply has shifted up the value curve. People no longer choose places based on location and availability alone. They choose based on how those places make work, life and their identity feel. Retail is learning this 15+ years into its evolution. Hospitality has mastered it. Media was disrupted and rebuilt by it. CRE is now accelerating the exact same curve. Just later. The Operator's Take If you're still competing primarily on space, you are pricing a commodity. If you're designing Experiences, you're building a relationship with the tenant. Those two paths lead to very different outcomes. Close The question isn't whether CRE becomes an Experiential industry. It's who makes the transition, holistically as a platform, early enough to own demand when it does.

Demand no longer follows space. It follows Experience. Daily Signal #1 In 1998 Joe Pine presciently described the arc every major industry would go through: commodity --> packaged good --> service --> Experience. Commercial Real Estate is mostly stalled out somewhere between goods and services - with COVID and the interest rate cycle moving organizations back down the Experiential evolution graph in many ways. Tenants and employees have moved on anyways. Reframe Demand hasn't disappeared from office or cities more largely. It simply has shifted up the value curve. People no longer choose places based on location and availability alone. They choose based on how those places make work, life and their identity feel. Retail is learning this 15+ years into its evolution. Hospitality has mastered it. Media was disrupted and rebuilt by it. CRE is now accelerating the exact same curve. Just later. The CRE Takeaway If you're still competing primarily on space, you are pricing a commodity. If you're designing Experiences, you're building a relationship with the tenant. Those two paths lead to very different outcomes. Close The question isn't whether CRE becomes an Experiential industry. It's who makes the transition, holistically as a platform, early enough to own demand when it does.

@jasonlk @hnshah

They don’t know. The biggest gap IMHE is often a VP at a startup. They work directly with the founders and think they know. They know the motions. But they always have a huge revelation once they are a founder themselves of how it’s 10x harder and 50x more involving than they thought

Most people have no idea what it actually takes to be a founder. They talk about vision, grit, or passion. Those words are props. What you really sign up for is a life where every decision feels like it costs something real. You will spend years being misunderstood. By your team, your family, even the people you hire to help you. You will fail in public and still need to keep the energy up in private. Every founder lives with the weight of knowing that you can do everything right and still get crushed by luck, timing, or somebody else’s mistake. Founders aren’t braver than anyone else. They just get used to uncertainty, then stop waiting for clarity. Most of your wins won’t feel like wins at all. The first revenue will be too small. The first team will outgrow you or leave. The first product that feels right will barely matter to the market. You will doubt yourself in private, sometimes every week. The founders who last figure out how to keep moving while the ground shifts underneath them. Most outsiders want the founder badge but none of the scars. They want the upside, not the drag. The hardest part is sticking around after every plan gets blown up and you have to rebuild with less optimism and more scar tissue. What makes it work isn’t relentless hustle or some mythical trait. It’s learning to make peace with constant discomfort, and then making decisions anyway. If you need constant reassurance, you’ll give up before the real work begins. If you want everyone to like you, you’ll never make the calls that matter. If you can’t handle months where nothing feels certain, this life will eat you alive. But if you can hold your own in chaos, get better at being wrong, and still want to show up and try again, you just might have a shot at building something that matters. That’s what it actually takes. And nobody cares until you make it work.

@bhalligan Dear… anyone?

Dear Entrepreneurs, Never refer to yourself as a “leader” or a “visionary.” Let others do it for you. Love, Brian.

@bhalligan My old man has a sign in his office that says “clarify, simplify, routinize”

I think one thing that worked for me building HubSpot is I was a “repetitive simplifier.” I found ways to make complex things simple and repeated that thing millions of times. Simplification - underrated Repetitiveness - underrated

@bhalligan Great post. As a close spectator of the Inbound category creation it really was a Herculean effort. Interested to read a deep dive on the nitty gritty work of that journey.

Everything I learned about strategy in building HubSpot: Watch the competition, but never follow it: I got this line from Arnoldo Hax, my strategy professor at Sloan, and repeated it so many times that it is ingrained in HubSpot’s DNA. It is relatively obvious at this point that HubSpot competes with Salesforce.com (a formidable competitor). We very carefully watched them, but tried not to “follow” them—see next lesson. When everyone is zigging, you should zag: Regardless of what you think of Peter Thiel’s politics, he wrote a really good book on startups called Zero To One. In it, he talks about how you need to be right about something that everyone thinks you are wrong about for a long time. This type of “zagging” worked for HubSpot three times. First, we decided to focus on SMB (more M than S, btw) and stuck with it when everyone and their brother thought we should move to the enterprise. Second, we decided we would move from a marketing application company to a CRM platform company, competing with Salesforce, when everyone and their sister told us we were crazy to try because they were too hard to compete with. Third, we decided we would “build” (craft!) our CRM in-house as opposed to acquiring our way there when everyone and their cousin told us that we needed to follow ye olde CRM M&A franken-playbook. Don’t trash talk: I somewhat recently watched the U.S. Open tennis finals. In the remarks after the matches, I always appreciate how respectful the players are toward their opponents and how they express it. I feel the same way about Salesforce; they are a very good company that is hard to compete with, and no good comes in “poking the bear.” [h/t to my co-founder Dharmesh for coming up with the “poke the bear” analogy and many other brilliant things] Creating a category is harder than it looks:  HubSpot created the “inbound marketing” category.  Pulling that off involved writing about zillion blog articles, giving a jillion speeches, writing a book, running a conference, etc.  We invested way more energy in creating the inbound marketing category in the early years than we did in marketing the HubSpot product.  …So, when we wanted to go into the sales category, we thought we could just re-run the same playbook for “inbound sales.”  Failed.  When we went into CRM, we thought we’d create a new category called CMR, “customer managed relationship” software.  Failed.  When we released our CMS, we thought we’d create a new category called COS, “content optimization system.”  Failed.  In retrospect, we caught lightning in a bottle with “inbound marketing.” Either you are eaten by a platform or become a platform:  In the early days of HubSpot, we used to pitch the company as “Salesforce.com is to sales as HubSpot is to marketing.”  Under our breath, we’d always say “until Salesforce.com wants to become the Salesforce.com of marketing.”  Well, one day they did.  They picked up Exact Target, Pardot, Radian6 and Buddy Media all within a few months and built themselves a very large Marketing Cloud business.  We decided at that point that we ought to pivot from being a marketing app to a CRM platform ourselves, lest we be eaten.  This turned out to be a very good call in hindsight.  [h/t Steve Fradette, co-founder of Toast]

@KTmBoyle Immediately books ticket

Worst part of America. There’s nothing there to see except 50 ft alligators. Doesn’t hold a candle to New York City or California. You should avoid the panhandle and North Florida like your life depends on it please do not go or move there.

@bhalligan Were these mostly Hubspot folks or also BOD and outsiders?

My career has alternated between states where I had very little idea of what I was doing (adding no value) and states where I was in a high state of flow (adding a ton of value). A handful of terrific colleagues over my 35 year career that helped me out of clueless states. Doing it alone didn’t help much no matter how hard I pushed.

We talk the compounding Machine that is Brookfield on Ep 8 of the Quantum City Initiative show. What do people think, should we call them AI factories?

Returning from an amazing @theallinpod summit, it's clear technology is reshaping cities as its new product. Some oppose this, urging investment in existing cities, but I support the free market's role. We must build new and upgrade what we have.

This may be a dumb question but when a team is down 9+ points and in FG position with less than 2 minutes left, why do they keep going for TD running clock vs kicking field goal and optimizing time to get ball back which is the bigger factor?

@MSRNE Do you guys still host community events in your Cambridge space? I remember when the NERD center opened up it was the hub for Boston tech events, wondering if that's still an option!

Since publishing the Quantum City Initiative a few weeks ago I've caught flack from both the right and the left. Some on the right seem to be fundamentally anti-city and view them as synonymous with the left. Some on the left seem to be fundamentally anti-technology view any tech progress as synonymous with the new right.