notes, learnings and reflections for future self reference
It’s been observed there is an average time lag of around one to three months before obvious trends observed to insider becomes apparent to mainstream media.
New Blow to Hedge Funds as Software Darlings Start to Crumble
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-19/fresh-blow-to-hedge-funds-as-software-darlings-start-to-crumble
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-08-07/home-prices-decline-in-some-of-the-costliest-markets-in-the-u-s
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-24/san-francisco-s-sky-high-office-rents-to-slip-as-building-peaks
Zuckerberg Warns China’s Censored Internet Could Still Win Out
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/zuckerberg-warns-china-s-censored-internet-could-still-win-out
Apple bows to China by removing Taiwanese emoji
https://qz.com/1723334/apple-removes-taiwan-flag-emoji-in-hong-kong-macau-in-ios-13-1-1/
Christian Dior apologizes for omitting Taiwan from Chinese map
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/10/17/china-bullies-christian-dior-apologizing-omitting-taiwan-map/
China exerts pressure on NBA to fire key executive for tweet on Hong Kong unrest
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/sports/basketball/nba-china-adam-silver.amp.html
Solomon island switches relationship to China from Taiwan
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/world/asia/solomon-islands-taiwan-china.amp.html
Kiribati switches relationship to China from Taiwan
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/20/taiwan-loses-second-ally-in-a-week-as-kiribati-switches-to-china
Southeast Asia balances between Chinese Markets and US defense
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/09/world/asia/china-us-asia-rivalry.html
Facebook Warns Washington That Beijing Wins If Libra Plan Fails
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/facebook-warns-washington-that-beijing-wins-if-libra-plan-fails
China simultaneously experiences imported deflation and inflation.
Drop in global demand for exports causes credit to unwind within the manufacturing sector.
Swine flu and depleting foreign reserves causes price pig to increase.
This will be a useful case study to observe the monetary and fiscal policy China implements to deal with simultaneous inflationary and deflationary pressures.
China Factory Deflation Worsens as Pork Drives Consumer Prices https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-15/china-factory-deflation-worsens-as-pork-drives-consumer-prices
Fascinating AB testing observed on the entire world’s population by major news networks.
Barely 72 hours after the announcement of phase 1 trade deal, its accompanying mass euphoria and surge in world markets, the almost same exact photo with some slight changes in copyrighting and background color is released into production.
It will be fascinating to observe the world’s reaction to this new AB year variant that just got released and the corresponding market price levels.
Private one on one chats over dinner and generally more insightful than listening to talks in conferences.
Starts building a model about a space before diving in. After diving in with investments further build out the model. Coefficients for the model include areas:
Betting on consumerization of the space as opposed to enterprise. Recent move by Charles Schwarb will not likely impact revenue of consumer apps.
Looking for startups focused on the vector that will get them into consumer wallets as well as grow to occupy a much larger portion of the consumer wallet.
When baby happens, need to get baby insurance. Then next would be Will. And then next…
Hedge funds are not suitable for VC investments. Hedge fund managers should look for other types of investors.
CEOs has not much time. Prefer to high a company that is specialized in acquiring security solutions and delegate the problem to them instead. If shit hits the fan, gets to delegate blame. Companies do not remove security solutions but keep on adding on new ones. Its like a bandaid approach. Removing solutions runs the risk of causing bleeding, very dangerous. The recurring revenue is very lucrative.
When it comes to security is not a question of ability to deeply penetrate a system. Its a question of willingness to pay to penetrate the said system.
On public web data, building model based that is based around proven correlations – CxOs tend to leave a company before shit happens.
On offline data, putting in boxes in data centers to track traffic volume in and out of data centers to approximate demands on another company’s servers
VCs are increasingly concerned about governance. WeWork’s founder have basically offload USD500million dollars on the secondary market to other hedge fund managers.
If the core economic of the business does not work before funding, it will only get worst after funding. This is because the company will need to clear an even higher valuation before new investors will be profitable.
Having a lot of big brand name VCs does not necessarily mean that you will have a good board. The board needs to be well round. The founder needs to be able to align all the members of the board.
Calibrate the needs of the needs of the corporate and the needs of the founders.
Expect governance to be intact. For the founders to truly execute upon what they sold when they raised the money.
Would be happy to even just double their money.
Nuclear bombs are deterrents and weapons of last resort. Cyber attacks are tools are massively disruptive tools that could be used with plausible deniability.
White house open the pandora box when they disrupted Iran’s nuclear program with cyber attacks. They now faces challenge of cyber attacks from China, Russia and North Korea.
After observing Obama successfully utilizing social media to win the elections and the Arab springs uprising, the west was lead to believe a web that promoted open communications will lead to the spread of democracy around the world . However, it was not long before authoritarian states realized it’s potential use for big brother surveillance.
North Korea has the largest and most sophisticated hacker networks. And they have an asymmetrical advantage because most of their systems are not modernized and not probes to hacking. US embraced technology in both the private and public sector. Each wave of technology adoption leads to exposure of new vulnerable loops holes.
North Korea hacked Sony to prevent the release of “The interview”. It fell under the grey area where the US government did not respond.
Chinese hacks were initially targeted at acquiring intellect property to further their own technological advancement. Chinese government hack knowledge and pass them to Chinese companies.
This was the chief reason for Google’s exit from China.
China has recently positioned itself to be a source of venture capital funding to acquire Silicon Valley technology knowhow. By not outright acquiring these companies they were able to fly under the radar.
Hacked into US government system to figure out the agenda of each future presidential candidate.
Bought Facebook and Twitter ads to influence 2016 US elections. It also used Fake News to muddle facts from the truth.
It’s agenda is to ensure former USSR territories do not join Europe.
It’s team disrupted Ukrainian elections by causing critical systems to shut down.
White house struggles between determining if a hack should be considered a attack to the state or simply an act of vandalism that should be handled by the courts.
Exposing a hack without an accompanying comprehensive solution will only alert hackers to alter their approach while causing public hysteria.
It is hypocritical to condemn another country for cyber attacks if your own country is undertaking the same type of hacks. HuaWei is a classic example. If the entire world switches over to HuaWei, US intelligence’s ability to do surveillance will be compromised in favor of China’s ability to do surveillance.
Silicon Valley giants are reluctant to acknowledge their platform can be a vector for compromising democratic process.
Technology is value agnostic. The way its applied is predicated by the value system of the user.