Technology, Capital Markets, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Entrepreneurship
Yesterday Expedia (ticker: EXPE) announced that its CEO and CFO had resigned effective immediately. The reason? A disagreement in strategy with Chairman Barry Diller. Expedia's former CEO and CFO had pursued a corporate reorganization to "streamline operations" to "drive innovation at scale." Our observation - certainly insofar as the Technology industry is concerned - is … Continue reading Decentralized Operating Models Will Always Win the Day Over Centralized Counterparts
Deepfake technology is an advanced cyberthreat that has captured the imagination over the past number of months. Deepfakes have the potential to re-write history (see the fake President Nixon Apollo 11 video below), spread mass disinformation and engage in fraud. How best to mitigate the risk of advanced cyberthreats such as deepfakes? We have previously … Continue reading AI Augmentation: The Melding of Man and Machine to Combat Advanced Cyberthreats
It is going to be a tough road for Walmart (ticker: WMT), to catch Amazon (ticker: AMZN). The latter can use profits from PRIME and AWS to subsidize investments that provide a competitive advantage in retail operations and elsewhere (think cashierless checkout). One way for Walmart to begin to remedy this situation would be to … Continue reading Walmart + PayPal = True Commerce
With Michael Bloomberg throwing his hat into the ring for the 2020 Democratic nomination, many have speculated as to how Bloomberg would divest his equity stake in his namesake firm were he to win the Presidency. We don't expect Mr. Bloomberg to win the Office of the President nor would a sale necessarily be required … Continue reading Prospective Bloomberg LP Acquirers
Our rationale as to why Walmart should acquire Oracle is fairly simple. WMT's strategy: Walmart is pushing to become an "omnichannel" (brick & mortar plus online) retailer. Walmart has rolled out various online offerings most of which are the result of acquisitions. Data proliferation drives demand for storage and advanced analytics: Online retail generates reams … Continue reading A Case for Walmart to Acquire Oracle
"This can't be done." "It will never work." "It's too expensive." "It's too difficult." "There's too much risk." Nonsense. Within the next 25 years ambient AI will be a reality, EV's will be the norm, 1 home in 10 will have an autonomous vehicle and there will be ten or more trillion dollar market cap … Continue reading Don’t Fall Victim to the Culture of “Can’t”
As a follow-up to our November 14th article, we ran a quick supplemental analysis on our 2018 Mid Cap Software CEO Analysis. Although our sample set was considerably smaller, we found evidence to partially support the conclusions of Harrison, Thurgood, Boivie and Pfarrer insofar as the top 2 bullets in the below graphic. We plan … Continue reading More RE: CEO Personality & Implications for Stock Prices
PayPal (tkr: PYPL) plans to acquire e-commerce rewards company Honey Science Corporation for approximately $4 billion. The deal is expected to close in Q1 2020 and is but another Fintech deal in a year rich with Fintech transactions. PayPal plans to leverage Honey, legacy PayPal and Venmo as a payments triangle of sorts. Honey of … Continue reading Mobile Commerce – PayPal to Acquire Honey for $4 Billion
Our CEORater equal-weight mock Technology portfolio leverages various CEORater investing principles and has outperformed by a significant margin. (tickers mentioned: ADBE, AMZN, CSGP, GOOG, MA, MSFT, NOW, SSNC, TWLO, VEEV, VRSK) We kicked off an experiment in Q1 of 2019. This experiment - not to be confused with the CEORater Technology Founder CEO Index - … Continue reading High Quality Tech Names – Steady as She Goes
Not all businesses are created equal. Leverage the attributes that make yours unique. It is critical for CEO's and executives in general to understand the attributes that make their respective businesses unique. These unique attributes vary and may include elements of product design, engineering, service delivery, product quality and intellectual property among others. Executives ought … Continue reading Leverage Your Unique Attributes
