Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
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Brandon DonnellyStubborn flexibility
I've been having more coffee meetings over the last few weeks. And one of the things they are doing -- besides making me jittery -- is reminding me that at least two things happen during bear markets:
Conviction gets tested.
People get really creative.
Let's start with number one. It's easy to have conviction in something when it's obviously working and lots of other people are doing it. But what about when that is no longer the case?
Take the example of Amazon. In this 2018 post by Fred Wilson, he reminds us that at the peak of the internet bubble in 1999, Amazing was trading at around $90 per share. Two years later it was somewhere around $6 per share. And it was not until 2007 that Amazon would start trading above its peak again.
In hindsight, holding on was very obviously the right thing to do. But to do that from 1999 to 2007, you would have needed patience. And to have patience, you would have needed a high degree of conviction in Amazon as a company and in the internet as the harbinger of an important societal shift. That wouldn't have been easy -- just like many things today are not easy.
At the same time, bear markets force people to get really creative -- we're now onto thing number two. In this case, it's not a question of patience. It's, "the thing I was doing before no longer works and I don't know if/when it will work again, so I'm going to get creative and try something new." Bear markets give you this wonderful opportunity because the opportunity cost of not doing the status quo disappears (or greatly reduces).
On some level, though, these are two contradictory things: are we sticking to our guns or are we trying something new? But in my mind, you want both. This is not about saying, "lots of people used to want to buy cryptocurrencies and condominiums, but now a lot of people don't, so I'm going to move onto the next hot thing." It's something more calculated than this.
To return to Amazon, I think it's akin to Jeff Bezos' old mantra that you want to be stubborn on vision, but flexible
I've been having more coffee meetings over the last few weeks. And one of the things they are doing -- besides making me jittery -- is reminding me that at least two things happen during bear markets:
Conviction gets tested.
People get really creative.
Let's start with number one. It's easy to have conviction in something when it's obviously working and lots of other people are doing it. But what about when that is no longer the case?
Take the example of Amazon. In this 2018 post by Fred Wilson, he reminds us that at the peak of the internet bubble in 1999, Amazing was trading at around $90 per share. Two years later it was somewhere around $6 per share. And it was not until 2007 that Amazon would start trading above its peak again.
In hindsight, holding on was very obviously the right thing to do. But to do that from 1999 to 2007, you would have needed patience. And to have patience, you would have needed a high degree of conviction in Amazon as a company and in the internet as the harbinger of an important societal shift. That wouldn't have been easy -- just like many things today are not easy.
At the same time, bear markets force people to get really creative -- we're now onto thing number two. In this case, it's not a question of patience. It's, "the thing I was doing before no longer works and I don't know if/when it will work again, so I'm going to get creative and try something new." Bear markets give you this wonderful opportunity because the opportunity cost of not doing the status quo disappears (or greatly reduces).
On some level, though, these are two contradictory things: are we sticking to our guns or are we trying something new? But in my mind, you want both. This is not about saying, "lots of people used to want to buy cryptocurrencies and condominiums, but now a lot of people don't, so I'm going to move onto the next hot thing." It's something more calculated than this.
To return to Amazon, I think it's akin to Jeff Bezos' old mantra that you want to be stubborn on vision, but flexible
Support Brandon Donnelly
Brandon DonnellyStubborn flexibility
Subscribe to Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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