What, Why

This site is a place to share some of my thoughts. I’ve always believed that if you like something you should try to make it, not just consume it. Since I consume a great deal of long-form writing on economics and society, it seemed right to share my own perspectives with others. I’ve found my own thinking has been greatly improved by the act of writing & encourage others to do the same!

I enjoy discussion as much as creation so feel free to shoot me a note if you have any thoughts.

About Me

Conrad currently serves as VP of Finance & Monetization for a Series C startup headquartered in San Francisco. In this role he has touched most parts of the organization’s go to market, from transitioning the business to a hybrid usage-based pricing model, to running a growth-oriented deal desk that advises every deal, to designing the company’s first sales incentive plans. He has partnered closely with product leads on the launch of all new products and to help keep costs under control. His essay on navigating the failure of SVB can be found here. He is happy to share his perspectives on the role of finance teams at high-growth companies, responsible capital allocation, and ensuring growth is sustainable for the long term in person over a coffee.

Previously, Conrad has spent time building a marketplace to serve the GPU market, initially focused on gamers but later also serving the crypto mining industry, and still retains a strong passion for the space. His first non-index fund stock purchase was NVDA, made after trying to build a gaming PC in 2016 and reading pages of niche internet forums discussing the massive lead NVDA had established over rivals.

Before that, he worked for Dropbox on their Strategic Finance team in San Francisco, California.

His work at Dropbox over nearly 3 years included: Active User Growth & Retention, Core Monetization, Consumer & SMB SKU Creation & Differentiation, Enterprise Pricing, Alternative Monetization Exploration, and a project to Focus Budgeting & Investing in order to achieve Free Cash Flow Positive during a critical period for the company.

Additionally, he managed more traditional Corporate Finance workflows throughout his tenure, including providing recommendations on Acquisition Price for potential Corporate Development targets, interfacing with the broader Finance org., EPD orgs., & Wall St. to draft the initial version of the S-1 & prepare the company to IPO, and building and running the internal Budget and Long-Run Forecast for core Consumer & SMB Revenue segments.

Before Dropbox, Conrad worked at JP Morgan in Technology, Media, & Telecom Investment Banking; for a Boston-based startup that built a real-estate platform and network of sites supporting home-buyers; and for American Industrial Partners, an operationally-focused private equity firm that makes control investments in industrial businesses.

Conrad graduated from MIT in 2013, with a major in Mechanical Engineering, a concentration in Management Science, and a minor in Japanese. He graduated from Phillips Academy Andover in 2009, where he won awards for Japanese and ran a 50.9 second 400m. He could not run that fast today.

While at MIT, he also developed and released Kanjimasu, a simple website to help Japanese students practice Kanji & expand their vocabulary for the prestigious Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

He has also worked on game design as a hobby for original iOS and PC videogames, and believes strongly in designing systems that encourage and reward players who play to win.

His essays, which can be found both here and at radicalcontributions.substack.com have attracted over 250k unique readers and been featured on mainstream media (TechCrunch, CNBC) and popular online publications (Marginal Revolution, AstralCodexTen, The Browser, & The Diff). His YouTube videos on game design & strategy have been watched over 100k times. While he enjoys these facts, the comments and engagement from strangers bring the most joy to Conrad, a small selection of which can be found here.

(if you’d like to discuss any of the above with me, just shoot me an email!)