The New World Yes, the market expected modest jobs growth of 50,000 in the first reporting of the new year, and the number fell short by 1,000 with non-farm job growth of 49,000, but unemployment, which was expected to stay at about 6.7% at least fell to 6.3%. Overall, I suspect the markets and economists will take that as good news for the economy. Jobs growth is one of the common measures that everyone agrees…
You Can’t Win Against Crazy When I was a founding partner of a venture capital company that would up being very successful, I learned several important lessons. We had one company that failed early because the young, 23-year-old CEO started having a meltdown early on. He was a co-founder of his company and his partner was the reason we were in the investment in the first place. He got crosswise with that partner and used…
The Stop Game Stop Game I have been asked by several friends to write about the Game Stop issue and whether this is a new trend with the little guy triumphing over the big institutional investors on Wall Street. I know that everyone loves an underdog story, a David and Goliath battle where the stone and sling slay the giant. Everyone wants this to be a turning point where the rich stop getting richer and…
Getting Paid I have a friend who worked with me for fifteen years twenty years ago. Think about that for a moment, its been longer since we worked together than the time we worked together. He was one of three of us partners of our firm that were always called upon to act as Master of Ceremonies for whatever gathering we had. I guess that was because we each had a degree of presence that…
Remember Bitcoin? About six years ago I helped a fellow Cornell Business School alumnus launch a new venture capital fund. It was to be focused on Fintech or financial technology companies, an area that held a great deal of interest to me since the democratization of finance had been a topic of thought by me and those around me during my career for a long time. The penultimate Chairman of Bankers Trust Company, the formative…
Coping In 1997 I was on the Management Committee of Bankers Trust Company after twenty years of rising through the ranks and having taken on a wide diversity of roles in many different businesses. I had served in mostly line management capacities, but had also had a few staff positions, all with a growing breadth of responsibilities. In other words, I had risen through the middle management levels and was one of the firms leadership…
Working Stiff I have a strange feeling that 2020 was a buffer year for me, not so much by design, but by happenstance. After many years (I mark them as starting in 1966 at the age of twelve…so call it fifty-five years), the inertia of work has set in. People talk about “failing retirement” as a cute tongue-in-cheek way of bragging that they are so busy in retirement or see such a demand for their…
Going Beyond Perfect Vision Today is the first day of 2021 (or it will be when this publishes). I have rarely felt so much angst and anticipation for a new year as I feel this year. I suspect I am not alone in this feeling, but perhaps I am more inclined to elaborate on that feeling than others. To begin with and to get this out of the way, going beyond 2020 with one’s vision…
Consensus Construction I have gotten myself into a funny place…again. That funny place has to do with my deck renovation project. This is unlike any other project I have undertaken before. The fundamental reason is that I probably have too much time on my hands. Precisely speaking, I have both the time and am home-bound by COVID like we all are. That is proving to be a very expensive combination. I write 1,200 – 1,400…
Irresponsibility On Friday, I was in the second day of the administratively enforced blackout (as in total grid shut-down) from our local utility. The cause (excuse?) was the Santa Ana wind and its harsh dry gusts that could easily induce a wildfire that could quickly get out of control and create a liability for said utility. I had had the foresight to anticipate the possibility of this situation earlier in the year and put my…