About Me & Tea Leaves

I’m Phillip. And over a 20-year career, I’ve seen a few things.

• I built real estate credit risk models … as the housing bubble peaked.

• I was hired at the Federal Reserve … a few months before Lehman failed.

• I joined a technology investment banking team … the summer of Facebook’s IPO.

• I ran credit for a bank … after it purchased distressed mortgages in the Great Financial Crisis.

• I managed a pool of unsecured loans … during the COVID pandemic.

• I co-founded a fintech … that banked with Silicon Valley Bank during the infamous run of 2023.

… I either have very good or very bad luck, depending on how you look at it.

In any event and along the way, I developed a habit of looking backward to make sense of what’s in front of me. Reading, listening, watching — observing. Connecting any dots I could to get at the heart of the matter.

Tea Leaves is what happens when that process gets jotted down on paper.