Technology, Capital Markets, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Entrepreneurship
Category: Venture Capital
Facebook imagines a future in which consumers will pay for online and offline services with its cryptocurrency - Libra. Our view is that Libra will eventually enjoy broad adoption. The cryptocurrency floodgates are open, it’s primarily a question as to how Libra and others will be regulated. Regulation boils down to the size of the … Continue reading Facebook Calibra and Libra.
Much was made of Apple's chief designer Jony Ive stepping down last week. Rightfully so. What does it mean when companies aren't led by domain experts? "He’s not just a designer. That’s why he works directly for me. He has more operational power than anyone else at Apple except me. There’s no one who can … Continue reading When Companies Aren’t Led by Experts
Rideshare as a long-term investment? Right up there with owning an airline. Heck, even if the rideshare companies were operating at scale - running on autonomous vehicle fleets - would you really want to own that business? Depreciating assets, multiple competitors (it will be more than Lyft and Uber), and thin profit margins (we are … Continue reading Rideshare as an Investment? Don’t Be Spun by the VCs
CEO tenure is getting shorter and we believe a primary cause is less than optimal alignment between CEOs, Executive Team members and Corporate Boards. Alignment Scale Exercise On a scale of 1-10 (10 is best) where would you rate the level of alignment between yourself and your direct reports? Between yourself and your Board of Directors?You may … Continue reading CEO – Executive Team – Board (“CEB”) AlignmentPremium
Today’s announcement that Fiserv plans to acquire First Data in a $22 billion all stock deal continues the string of payments-related deals. More importantly it stresses what many know – that the incumbent payment companies are not innovation factories. Acquire in the absence of innovation – although I believe all companies should have an active … Continue reading Fiserv & First Data: Acquire in the Absence of InnovationPremium
We recently published an article: "Multi-Tenant Machine Learning at Scale". Think of this RPA ("Robotic Process Automation") post as a follow-up piece as told with pictures. Our perspective is primarily through the lens of an investor as to how we would value each of the three RPA business models. You may access a PDF version … Continue reading The 3 RPA Flavors
For the past few years I've poked around the machine learning ("ML") and artificial intelligence ("AI") space. I advised Boston-based DataRobot back in 2014 when they started to build their machine learning platform. I've thought about how we at CEORater may leverage ML to score CEOs and companies. Typically when we read about ML and … Continue reading SS&C Technologies: Multi-Tenant Machine Learning at Scale
The below content is comprised of excerpts from an article previously published by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Charles A. O’Reilly recalls the time that his wife encountered Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the Whole Foods market parking lot in Palo Alto. “She was walking out when he was walking out, and when he … Continue reading Narcissistic CEOs Carry Greater Legal Risk
Could we have predicted that Elon Musk's restlessness would have led to his founding of (SpaceX) even though he more than had his hands full with Tesla? How about his latest company - "The Boring Company" - could its founding have been predicted? The answer is "maybe". Are we surprised by Musk's emotionless approach to … Continue reading Predicting CEO Actions and Financial Outcomes Based On CEO PersonalityPremium
Bundle Pricing Negotiations Are Preferable to Product Pricing Negotiations Vendors have far more leverage with customers when negotiating pricing for a bundle/platform of products and services as opposed to an a la carte negotiation. There's a reason why cable providers sold content bundles for years - it was the optimal revenue and profit model - … Continue reading Have A Bundle Discussion with Customers, Not A Product DiscussionPremium
