The Instant Classic

/ July 26, 2019

In his popular book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Richard Thaler suggests that, “Many people have made money selling magic potions and Ponzi schemes, but few have gotten rich selling the advice, ‘Don’t buy that stuff’.” In fact, it can be downright unpopular to be the adult in the room when easy money seems to be falling from the skies like raindrops in Seattle in January.

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The Mysterious Case of the Elongated IPO

/ July 19, 2019

Ben Horowitz, famed entrepreneur and venture capitalist, once quipped that as a startup CEO he “slept like a baby [because he] woke up every two hours and cried.” As many others at the head of early-stage businesses can attest, Ben isn’t overreaching all that far in his comparison. While many factors play into the often-disrupted sleep patterns of entrepreneurs, perhaps the most jarring is the fact that the vast majority of early-stage companies are destined to flop. Statistically speaking, nine out of ten startups will fail.

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Bubble 3.0: The Post-Retirement Society

/ July 12, 2019

Many social commentators, probably rightly, assert that Western culture is in the post-phase: Post-modern, post-religion, post-civility, post-bipartisan, post-patriotic, post-prudence, post-hope, post-tolerance and, perhaps, most inarguably, post-truth. But the “post” that is the topic of this month’s installment of “Bubble 3.0” is based on the thesis that the relatively recent phenomenon of a comfortable retirement is now also increasingly a thing of the past.

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