Technology, Capital Markets, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Entrepreneurship
Category: Investing
Over the past several years as I've read articles about Uber, WeWork and a number of technology startups, my takeaway is that many of these companies lack focus. They lack a focused mission. They lack strategic and operational focus. I understand the argument that institutional investors want growth in the absence of yield, but too … Continue reading Growth at All Costs Leads to A Lack of Focus
We are working on a project that has me thinking about the "long tail". For those who took Statistics you may recall that the long tail is the portion of the distribution where occurrences appear far away from the distribution's center. A long tail business strategy is one where the service provider makes hard to … Continue reading The Long Tail Will Differentiate You
A recession is defined as an economic period where GDP declines for two consecutive quarters. We believe the next recessionary period will be different as a result of artificially low interest rates. The United States' proclivity to print money and maintain artificially low interest rates makes it difficult for institutional investors to find yield. Gone … Continue reading The Next Recession Will Prove Different for U.S. Equity Markets
How Not to Build A Company Consider this one of our corporate governance articles. Reading about WeWork one can't help but wonder "Where were the adults in the room? Where was the Board?" Here is a partial list of WeWork's gaffes. WeWork founder and former CEO Adam Neumann and the Board creating and approving a … Continue reading WeWorkPremium
AI is a scale game. Massive amounts of data and a large number of data scientists are required to build and train machine learning models and neural networks that underpin products such as Google Assistant and many others we've grown accustomed to. Google has never been great at selling to the enterprise. If it ever … Continue reading Google – Keeping Tabs on the AI Leader
Last Week I Participated on an AI-focused Panel at the SS&C Deliver Conference The panel - “Practical Applications for AI in Investment Operations & Accounting” - was especially enjoyable because the audience engaged. While much has changed since I last worked in an Investment Operations capacity in 1998, much remains the same - meaning there … Continue reading It’s “Early Days” for NLP. The Opportunities Are Many
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 ComePremium
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.
