Technology, Capital Markets, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Entrepreneurship
Incentivize Prospective Participants with A Seat at the Table MoviePass shut down on September 14th. We do not have first-hand knowledge of MoviePass’ ever-evolving business model. However, we do know that MoviePass never quite figured out how to properly incentivize movie theaters to drive audience participation. When building new network businesses, it makes sense to … Continue reading If You Build It They Won’t Necessarily Come
Stripe - the payments API company that revolutionized ecommerce payments infrastructure - launches “Stripe Capital”, a commercial credit service that will lend to Stripe customers. Stripe Capital will have two key advantages over traditional Financial Institutions (“FIs”). First, Stripe is present at the point of sale, providing it insight into payments flow before the transaction … Continue reading Stripe Capital – The Latest Fintech Disruptor
Alternative Title: Innovation at Scale Sure, it's cheaper than ever to innovate today. Computing power increases while prices stay relatively flat. Cloud computing enables startups and small companies to acquire server capacity when needed and to leverage Artificial Intelligence capability from Day 1. Yet there are still real benefits to having scale, especially within the … Continue reading Don’t Bite the Hand that Feeds You
Companies mentioned: Adobe (tkr: ADBE), Alteryx (tkr: AYX), Amazon (tkr: AMZN), Automation Anywhere (private), BNY Mellon (tkr: BK), DataRobot (private), Google (tkr: GOOG), Microsoft (tkr: MSFT), Pegasystems (tkr: PEGA), Salesforce (tkr: CRM), SAS (private), SS&C Technologies (tkr: SSNC), Tableau (tkr: CRM, acquisition closed August 1st 2019), Tibco (private). Word count: 1,111. Two major trends have … Continue reading AI as A Competitive Differentiator for Asset Managers
When is the correct time to sell your company? Many entrepreneurs and CEOs struggle with this question. A blueprint unfortunately does not exist. Below are signposts we have observed primarily across Application Software, FinTech, InsurTech, Information Services, IT Services and Technology-Enabled Services. The company participates in a mature end market and continued growth is dependent … Continue reading Is It Time to Sell Your Company?
What if the NFL were to convert to a premium subscription service? From a technical standpoint it would not be terribly difficult to migrate to a streaming service model. The NFL could build the direct-to-consumer platform on top of AWS, Azure or GCP. The NFL’s library isn’t nearly as vast as Disney’s nor Netflix’s. The … Continue reading The NFL as a Streaming ServicePremium
Some years ago many insurance carriers wrote tranches of long-term care (“LTC”) life insurance policies which have proved to be toxic. These “toxic” LTC policies - primarily written between 1999-2004 - were at the heart of a scathing critique of General Electric (tkr: GE) last week which ultimately accused the company of accounting fraud. While … Continue reading Toxic Long Term Care Policies: A Bane for Many. A Boon for Some.
We recently wrote that “Scale Matters in Tech”. Technology companies that have captured the number 1 or number 2 position within a particular vertical enjoy Economies of Scale including: 1.) automatically getting a seat at the table for sales bakeoffs, 2.) job seekers naturally gravitate toward market leaders, 3.) prospective acquisition targets will find you, … Continue reading Three Activist Investor Targets
Hear that? Someone is listening. In fact, they all are: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, even Apple (who has positioned itself as a privacy champion). AI - more specifically the neural networks that power voice assistants - are far from fully autonomous. Deep learning models require human assistance at this juncture. Fair. It is when companies do … Continue reading AI’s Dark Side – They’re Listening
The software industry is fluid and unforgiving - especially the CyberSecurity space. Companies either innovate or fall behind. There is no such thing as standing still. This week semiconductor firm Broadcom (tkr: AVGO) agreed to acquire Symantec's Enterprise business. Symantec (tkr: SYMC), is a CyberSecurity software vendor and is a laggard in an industry that's … Continue reading The Software Treadmill: Keep Pace or Fall Behind
