It’s way worse than you think and way way worse than you want it to be.
October 8, 2018
Wealth Inequality in America
08October
September 20, 2018
Revenue – Expenses = Profit
20September
At a recent Seattle Impact Investing Group meeting, Leslie Christian was a guest speaker, sharing some of her wisdom on mixing impact with investing. Her wisdom is wide and deep, but one idea especially popped out: the paradigm of shareholder value, especially in regard to investors, risk, and return. Specifically, what we’re taught in Finance is the following equation: Revenues...
September 11, 2018
The commonly misunderstood tragedy of the commons
11September
Apparently I’ve misunderstood the “Tragedy of the Commons” and so likely have you. This is a great example of a meme that is assumed to be both ancient and obvious, but isn’t. There was an essay entitled “Tragedy of the Commons” written back in 1833, but it was ignored until Garret Hardin published an article in Science in 1968 with the same title. It’s...
August 23, 2018
Conspiracies and Corporations
23August
I try and keep politics off of this blog, but sometimes the coverage from politics sparks a question about entrepreneurship. Specifically today it was an explanation in The New York Times about how the law punishes conspiracy above and beyond the underlying crime. That triggered the question of what is the difference between a conspiracy and a corporation? Both are groups of people planning to...
August 8, 2018
People before Profit
08August
It took me a few months to finish People before Profit, the inspiring story of Bob Moore, the founder of Bob’s Red Mill. A friend recommended it, as (spoiler) at age 70 Bob gave the company to his employees. From my other readings on economics, I’m concluding that its the inequality of ownership that is the root cause of both wealth and income inequality. I was thus eager to read...
May 21, 2018
How many entrepreneurs are there in the world?
21May
Walk around with a hammer, and many things look like nails. Live your life as an entrepreneur (or startup investor) and it seems like entrepreneurs are everywhere.
Just how many entrepreneurs are there? According to the editors at asianentrepreneur.org, just 400 million globally. That is around 5% of the total population. Everywhere… but uncommon.
March 19, 2018
What if 99% of success is luck?
19March
What if 99% of success is luck? Not just success in startups (which is what I do, teach, and write about), but also success in life? If you are following this blog, you know I’ve been thinking about income inequality, digging into the questions of its root cause, and potential solutions. But what if there is no solution, as it’s true cause is a series of random chances, some good...
February 22, 2018
Myths and assumptions of tulips
22February
One of the best parts of Debt: The First 5,000 Years was pointing out the myth that economies always begin with barter (hint: they never have). Similarly, whenever a market starts to heat up, we inevitably hear about the tulip bubble in Holland in the 1630’s. Well… turns out those stories are myths as well. Anne Goldgar has written a book, Tulipmania: Money, Honor and Knowledge in...
December 19, 2017
A No-Lose Lottery
19December
The staff at the Freakonomics podcast does an amazing job of uncovering interesting business ideas. Two weeks ago the episode was “A No-Lose Lottery“. The idea is incredibly simple, but feels enough like a lottery that it is illegal in most countries. It goes like this: Create a savings account, where the savers are guaranteed to not lose their savings (if not earn a small interest...
December 12, 2017
Hockey sticks are really S-curves
12December
I love uncovering hidden assumptions. One in particular gets written about every day in one form or another. The high-speed growth of a handful of startups, of Bitcoin, and other “overnight successes“. Learn a bit of history, and you’ll discover that the steep adoption curve of any success is really just the middle of the story. The beginning of the story is the (often long)...
