Monthly Archives: October 2019

10/9/19

In Praise of Skepticism REVISITED

The other day a chap accuses me of being a “skeptic” about matters pertaining to the Chinese. I stand, say, “Guilty as charged.”

The police come, march me away and I decide to write a blog post to explain why being skeptical is the adult position on many things.

Then, I recall that back in 2015, I had written a blog post: In Praise of Skepticism.

It captured exactly what I thought then and now. So, I have copied it and am reposting it unchanged, below.

Things like this make me wonder if I have gotten better or worse at this blogging thing, now going on 8 years.

In Praise of Skepticism REVISITED

Big Red Car here. It rained yesterday in the tropical rain forest formerly known at Austin, Texas.

We are starting to like the daily rains. Everything is green. It is like the Amazon valley.

I am skeptical as to whether it will continue, which brings me to my thought for today — skepticism. Continue reading →

10/9/19

Bridging the Gap — Using Analytics

What do you — CEO of a company — do when you have gaps of information that cannot be bridged by analytics or anecdotal information?

Other day I am chatting with a CEO about the performance of his marketing and the quality of feedback they were getting from anecdotal information (call reports) and the traffic analytics on their website.

This particular CEO had encountered an AHA moment when they reconfigured their website to go from offering their software in the continuum of Freemium, Bronze, Silver, Gold to the opposite.

By this I mean he had gone from the least expensive/least capable package to the most expensive/most capable price to the opposite order.

OK, one more time. He went from:

Freemium – Bronze – Silver – Gold (least expensive, least capable to most expensive, most capable)

to

Gold – Silver – Bronze – Freemium. (most expensive, most capable to least expensive, least capable).

The results were staggering. He was suddenly hitting substantially higher rates of interest and sales. There is a story for another day as to how that came to be. [Do not do the same thing. There is a reason why this worked in this particular SaaS situation.]

Continue reading →

10/8/19

When Prices Drop To Zero — Robinhood

What happens to a business when your service is commoditized such that the price — the market price — is ZERO?

This is the problem facing the discount brokerage business today.

To refresh your memory:

 1. A long, long time ago, being a stockbroker was a great gig.

You wore a snazzy suit to work, came in just before the markets opened at 9:00 AM EST, read the Journal (maybe the NY Times back when it was a real newspaper), you called some clients, peddled some advice, entered trades for your customers, had lunch at your desk, and you collected commissions on those trades.

You, arguably, got paid for people following your advice. Let me translate that for you: You told people what to do and then those people paid you for following your advice.

Seems like a self-generating cycle? Move to the head of the class, please.

 2. Markets were open for restricted hours, ensuring that stockbrokers always got home on time for dinner and the chance to play nine before the sun went down.

No Saturdays, Sundays clear.

 3. Along comes this young geeky chap, Charlie Schwab, who understood the “back of house” trading of stocks — sort of like a guy who knows exactly what goes into sausage.

Look at those freakin’ dinosaur computers. Now you carry more than 100X that computing capability in your back pocket.

 

 

 4. Opines Charlie, “Why is the stock trading commission a percentage of the trade when it is the same work for electrons to run down a wire for 1,000 shares of a $10 stock as it is for a $1000 stock?”

Such is the nature of true genius, asking logical, obvious questions and ferreting out the answers.

Continue reading →

10/8/19

Chaos >>> Order

If you are a founder, entrepreneur, startup CEO then you are familiar with the notion of transforming chaos into order. [OK, let me say — “I hope you are.” However, we both know it is not as well ingrained as we might hope.]

If you are an “aspirin” startup — meaning the raison d’etre of your love child is to reduce the pain of mankind, the chaos is the pain and the order is the pain free — or lessened pain — environment that results thereafter.

If you are a “vitamin” startup — meaning the raison d’etre of your little bastard is to improve the quality of life, the chaos is the inferior quality of the before and the order is the higher quality plane of the after.

There is a decided “before” v “after” transformation.

Bit extreme, but it makes my point. Guy lost a lot of weight? What a magical transformation. I imagine he feels a lot better. Took those bad eating habits and created some order, no?

Continue reading →

10/7/19

Cracks in the Libra Foundation

Some time ago, we spoke about Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency.

We spoke of it here:

Facebook and Libra

Recently, we learned that PayPal has abandoned ship as one of the 28 founding Libra Association members. Sort of caught folks by surprise.

They didn’t give a reason, but mumbled along the lines of this:

Uhhh, ummm, we have decided “to forgo further participation in the Libra Association at this time and to continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to financial services for underserved populations.”

The Financial Times said that PayPal was concerned about the regulatory lightning Libra seems to be attracting.

Continue reading →

10/7/19

Cut The Crap — Hunter Biden

Your Big Red Car hasn’t posted a “Cut The Crap” sentiment in a while, so here is one today on Influence Peddling.

Hunter Biden is the son of former Vice President and current seeker of the nomination of the Democrat party Quid Pro Joe Biden. [Please forgive me. I couldn’t help myself. I have never liked Joe Biden. I always thought his Amtrak, the Senator from MBNA shtick was obsequious. I also am very cool on Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, and John McCain.]

Here’s Hunter taking in a basketball game with Dad and a pal of theirs. Who wouldn’t like this guy?

Anyway, unless you have been in some far away place — like the Ukraine, as an example — you probably have heard that Hunter Biden was named to the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company called “We Want Some Influence and Are Willing to Buy It at Full Price.” No, actually the company’s name is Burisma Holdings.

The Big Cheese at Burisma appointed Hunter Biden to the Board of Directors of his company and compensated him at the rate of $50,000 per month for a five year period — that, my friend is what called a “good” side hustle. Biden’s “company” also did some other work directly for the company deriving additional income.

Continue reading →

10/6/19

The Confusing State of Crypto in China

There is a huge amount of confusion as to the status of cryptocurrency regulation in China. The other day I read a commentary that suggested that all was rosy in China, when I was of the opinion that it was not.

Read this and you can judge for yourself. This is not intended as a nudge in any direction. It is just simple facts.

I did some research. Nothing ruins a good conversation like facts.

So, let’s review some facts, shall we?

Continue reading →

10/5/19

Ageism — Political Ageism

Senator, and candidate for the Democrat nomination to be eviscerated by President Trump in November 2020, Bernie Sanders had a heart attack that resulted in the installation of two stents in a blocked artery. [OK, the crack about being eviscerated is a little strong. Sorry. Wait, I don’t apologize to anybody about anything. Do I?]

Bernie Sanders is out of the hospital, resting comfortably, and contemplating returning to the campaign trail in a week. Bernie, don’t do it. You’re done, amigo.

God bless you, Bernie Sanders. Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery. Godspeed.

Continue reading →