Matt Watson and his wife were enjoying their vacation in 2022 when they received a call from a neighbor telling them the house they had moved into five months earlier was on fire. By the time they made it home to their neighborhood outside of Boston, they discovered their new home—and everything in it—had completely burned down.
So began a nearly two-and-a-half year process to rebuild. That process ended just last week when Watson, who is the founder and CEO of budgeting app Origin, and his family moved into their new home. As he's watched news of the wildfires in California destroying thousands of homes in the past week, Watson has reflected on what we wished he knew and done differently in the aftermath of his own family's devastation. After sharing some advice on X, elaborated on his experience with Fortune.
