Technology, Capital Markets, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Entrepreneurship
“CEO Tenure Is Getting Shorter..” the Wall Street Journal writes. Research indicates that the optimal tenure is 4.8 years. Median CEO tenure at large cap companies was five years in 2017, one year less than the median in 2013 (Equilar). To quote the article, “Xueming Luo, professor at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and…
The CEORater Technology Founder CEO Index returned 32.3% and 28.5% on a Weighted and Unweighted Stock Price Return basis respectively (click here for detail) during the January 2nd 2018 – September 18th 2018 period.
The S&P 500 Information Technology (TKR: S5INFT) returned 16.0% on a Weighted basis over the same period.
The Powershares S&P 500® Equal Weight Technology ETF (TKR: RYT) returned 16.6% on an Unweighted basis over the same period.
Cryptocurrency firms fell from grace (Chain and Lightyear merged to form Interstellar) as valuations and expectations got too far ahead of themselves for both the various “coin” firms as well as for blockchain – the distributed database technology that enables digital currency transactions. We are long-term bullish on each – particularly blockchain.
The crypto space isn’t the only sector that grew overheated as reality has set in to the autonomous vehicle space. Apparently robot cars won’t be shuttling all of humanity to and fro by 2025. We expect that autonomous vehicle startups will suffer a materially adverse impact to their respective valuations.
The two technology hype scenarios got us thinking about previous technology hype cycles. Thus, we created the TEK2day, CEORater “Technology Hype Curve” to visually represent an all too familiar pattern as it relates to hyping new technologies. Click HERE to download the Technology Hype Curve graphic.
Opportunity Cost for Active Managers Is High Institutional investors typically contemplate opportunity cost within the context of portfolio returns, individual stock returns and ROIC. What however is the opportunity cost associated with pursuing a broken business model versus correcting course? The capital markets are filled with smart people and smart machines. It is more difficult than ever…
Disintermediation Defined Disintermediation is when one party inserts itself between an interested party and its customers (see below table of “disintermediators” and “disintermediatees”). Ironically, parties that suffer disintermediation often invite it upon themselves. Google Disintermediates Yelp and OpenTable For the past several years Yelp restaurant reviews appeared on Google business listings (this appears to have…
Every founder CEO begins as a “creator”. Not every founder CEO graduates from “creator” to “builder”. Creators eventually self-implode (Elon Musk, Tesla and Travis Kalanick, Uber) whereas other founders are able to scale over the long-term. For example, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos are builders (We provide a list of Builder CEOs…
SaaS Companies and Subscription Revenue Models Every company can learn from SaaS (“Software-as-a-Service”), companies. My first exposure to SaaS companies was the first self-proclaimed “SaaS” company – Salesforce.com. This was early in my banking career around the time of Salesforce’s 2004 IPO. Today, Salesforce is a $110 Billion-plus market cap behemoth. Every company – regardless…
We are keeping our content light during the dog days of August. Perhaps you have seen our previous posts regarding CEO personalities? Our Mid-Cap Software CEO Personality Analysis made the rounds this spring (access HERE). For fun we thought we would put a new spin on the debate that has dominated NBA circles this offseason…
Content Is King Content is King to quote Sumner Redstone. At CEORater we spend a fair amount of time thinking about content. Over the past 24 months we have considered the following for our platform: 1.) video streaming of earnings calls with associated analytics 2.) employee video reviews 3.) business news (original and third-party) and…
Successful CEOs possess each of the attributes described below. This is an unscientific analysis based upon my prior experience covering and acquiring companies (equity research analyst; M&A executive) as well as my current role as founder of CEORater. It is important to recognize that while these attributes are qualitative in nature they do impact the…
