Great quote made back in 2009 "I can see the politicians of the time running on a platform that said, "Keep the barbarians out! More walls to defend the empire"."
Also
"As things stands, we seem to be blithely following the same path that the Roman Empire followed. Our leaders are unable to understand complex systems and continue to implement solutions that worsen the problem. As the wise druid was trying to tell to Marcus Aurelius, building walls to keep the barbarians out was a loss of resources that was worse than useless. "
Travis Kalanick might be upset... All the way to the bank, as a holder of huge equity and majority voting power (so he seems to have the capacity to reinstall himself as a CEO when/if he finds it fit) who surely has negotiated nice conditions for himself in any liquidity event.
JOE KENNEDY, a famous rich guy in his day, exited the stock market in timely fashion after a shoeshine boy gave him some stock tips. He figured that when the shoeshine boys have tips, the market is too popular for its own good, a theory also advanced by Bernard Baruch, another vested interest who described the scene before the big Crash:
"Taxi drivers told you what to buy. The shoeshine boy could give you a summary of the day's financial news as he worked with rag and polish. An old beggar who regularly patrolled the street in front of my office now gave me tips and, I suppose, spent the money I and others gave him in the market. My cook had a brokerage account and followed the ticker closely. Her paper profits were quickly blown away in the gale of 1929."
It seems that (for obvious reasons!) the bulk of the action is happening in US and China. However, I am also surprised that currently transaction volume in currencies of Brazil or Russia exceeds those in Euro or Yen...
Assuming (can't check myself, content is locked for me!) that quote from The Information (re: 20% accepted and and 20% stay) mentioned in comments below is true, I agree that CNBC phrase "Only 4 percent of people who sign up to drive for the ride-hailing service are still driving a year later" while being factually correct sounds misleading, even though they directly link to the original content!
Therefore, I ask the admins to change the link to the Information page!
Also, it would be nice if anyone can (for people like me who are NOT subscribed to The Information) kindly copy and paste here the whole original Information article. Thanks!
I would be happy to ask the admins to change the link to the Information page, although point is that this link is locked for me! Assuming that quote from The Information (re: 20% accepted and and 20% stay) is true, I agree that CNBC phrase "Only 4 percent of people who sign up to drive for the ride-hailing service are still driving a year later" while being factually correct sounds misleading, even though they directly link to the riginal content!
"This morning I told the Uber team that we're actively looking for a chief operating officer: a peer who can partner with me to write the next chapter in our journey," Kalanick said in a statement.
As far as I recall the "taxi tape" [1] Travis might rather prefer TWO female COOs who could partner with him :) right at the back seat of Uber Black limo :)
[1] Quoting https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2981388/uber-travis-kalanick-b... "Kalanick had been filmed boasting of his work ethic with two women on the backseat of the car before rowing with the driver"
My friend and CEO of fido.ai Michal Wroczynski reposted this article with an IMHO important clarification "Conflict is something to embrace. Narcistic Assholes don't have conflict with you - they are just lying all the time. No asshole rule is the most important advice for startups." Based on my personal experience I couldn't agree more!
Can this data mean that a significant part of "gig economy happens to be a fad, similar to 3D TVs or Groupon? I.e. that value of relevant companies could and would soon significantly shrink, just like it happened with Groupon and its clones, after they went through the whole body of SMBs (for most the deals were NOT profitable) and the deal-seeking individuals. The main difference being that attractive pricing for the labor-sharing and capital-sharing platforms was funded and subsidized by VC money, while for Groupon and clones money for reduced pricing went out of pockets of SMBs...
Bitcoin's gains have been buoyed by renewed interest from China, where money is rushing out of the country as its currency, the yuan, continues to weaken...
According to a recent Business Insider Intelligence briefing, citing data from Cryptocompare: "In the first 24 hours of the new year, over 5 million bitcoins were bought in Chinese yuan, equating to $3.8 billion. In contrast, just 53,000 bitcoins were bought in US dollars."
In retrospect I find this 3-days-old publication quite... amusing)) "... I [SC CEO and Musk cousin L. Rive] asked, 'Elon, hey can I have a family discount' and his answer is, 'Yeah absolutely. Go to TeslaMotor.com, buy the car online, and the price you see there is the family discount,'" Rive told Tech Insider. "Everyone gets a family discount."
So there you have it: Musk does not believe in preferential treatment for family members.