Why won't Pinterest's IPO price much exceed its private valuation of $12 billion? It seemed to have a great product/market fit, but there's a problem, especially compared to arch-rival Instagram. It doesn't offer sufficient incremental improvements in cost dynamics or productivity. More
Finance Partner Insights Security & Privacy
“You have zero privacy,” Scott McNealy, CEO of then-mighty Sun Microsystems famously said back in 1999, “Get over it.” His words have echoed through the subsequent two decades, too often seeming prescient. Now a fatalism has set in among consumers about what companies know about us and how much data is escaping our control. More
Amazon's latest results only underscore the scale of the company's opportunity. Our resident analysts deconstruct the earnings and explain why you should be optimistic, if you weren't already, about this amazing company's continuing potential to win. More
Business Finance Partner Insights
Making the right capital allocation decisions is essential if technology companies are going to grow over the long-term and maximize shareholder returns. Capital allocation decisions are even more important now because interest rates are rising, as is geopolitical uncertainty. As many tech companies begin to unwind their debt positions and are less inclined to borrow, […] More
Once you start thinking about time as the currency, it becomes easier to see which companies will succeed and which will fail. The ones that save us time will become the most valuable. More
Markets may be haywire now, but next year Amazon and Apple could head back to the trillion-dollar mark, says our analyst. He also sees China caving on trade and Uber capitalizing on ads. Privacy, though, will be a hallmark of success this year. More
Cryptocurrency Finance Government
Bitcoin is all the rage until it's not. A libertarian dream, it implies a distrust of established governments. This has finally sunk in on the governments themselves, and may be a cause of its continued decline. The associated blockchain technology, however, may be the real keeper. More
Today, banks must interact with their customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Some millennials never even set foot inside a bank branch and only interact with their finances via smartphone. Are new, mobile-only services like Pepper and Nequi the future of banking? More
Kathleen Breitman is person of the hour. Her company developed Tezos, a new blockchain-based cryptocurrency whose ongoing fundraising has raised over $200 million since July 1. We talked to her about why she thinks this is the way to make a better internet, and a better world. More
Analytics & Data Finance Security & Privacy
The coming world of the Internet of Everything means driverless cars making per-minute toll payments, lightbulbs that pick an energy vendor, IP royalties paid by devices themselves in real time, and investment decisions made by robo-advisors. This more efficient world will mean changes for banks, investment, and the way all of us live. More
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi interrupted most evening news in his country last Tuesday to announce that in just three hours, the Indian government would bar the use of 85% of its existing currency. This dramatic announcement comes as India seeks to root out untaxed “black money." More
The financial sector is on the brink of an AI revolution. Data is being generated faster than any person or companies’ ability to analyze it. And industries that run on numbers and data are at risk of being overwhelmed. But this new AI platform can create simple narratives and actionable analyses. More
The world is buzzing about fintech and the impending disruption in the banking industry. Smarter technology companies are attempting to give customers quality service and an experience that’s relevant to the world in which they live, and big banks are being left behind. The speed of innovation might surprise all of us. More
Central banks from England to China have floated the notion of issuing their own national digital currencies. The banks may issue digital currency units alongside notes and coins and adjust the mix over time. If they do, it could accelerate and help scale a wave of service innovations that advance financial inclusion, stimulate economic growth, and spur social progress. More
Blockchain—the technology behind (or interwoven with) BitCoin—is the main story. The "cryptocurrency" is almost a distraction, a sideshow to the real deal. Blockchain is a public ledger, a record against which anyone can see whether a transaction contained therein is valid. The applications may be mind-boggling. More
Wall Street fashions come and go. Does a company do better as an ever-accumulating conglomerate or a thinning-down disaggregator of business units? Eager investment bankers, hungry for fees, apply different rationales in different times. Hewlett-Packard and Compaq were better together. Now HPE and HPQ, are better apart. Or so they say. And the transaction occurred, generating vast fees for lawyers, bankers, and consultants. The benefit to shareholders, employees, and customers? Unclear. More
It’s not technology that’s dehumanizes us, but rather tedious tasks like personal finances themselves. And that's not just because working on them takes time out of our day. We’re simply not evolved to plan perfectly for the future. Automated advice is re-humanizing people. It’s giving them more time to spend what they want to be doing, and it’s based not just on their personal goals, but also on what fits into their lives. More
Finance Partner Insights Startup Culture
Financial technology startups promise to dramatically lower costs and make financial services more accessible to people who are not reached by traditional financial services today, especially (but not only) in emerging markets. And serving these populations can be profitable. Omidyar Network, where I work, has invested in numerous other fintech companies. But for us, this is more than the latest trend for investors seeking big multiples. More
Amidst all the brouhaha over Dell’s $67 billion bid for EMC, one unremarked fact is that Dell will have to again begin reporting financial results to the SEC. Michael Dell happily rid himself of that onerous task almost two years ago. But this is a different and more energized Dell than the business that went private in 2013. Dell has managed to retain his operating scope and freedom of action, even as he leverages up the company with his name on the door. More
Bio & Life Sciences Finance Startup Culture
This morning, I helped analyze fish scales to better track migration patterns, by giving the scientists some cash. Crowdfunding has made a difference in all sorts of initiatives, so it’s no surprise to see it pop up in science. Experiment was built by scientists who believe alternative funding could fill a key gap in research. More
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