There’s been an emergence of “pre-accelorator” or “people accelorator” programs—experiences that you can buy your way into with cash, as opposed to potentially valuable future equity, that replicate the education and network provided by the likes of YCombinator. They’re popping up in a variety of different verticals, led by one called On Deck and they’re causing a lot of people to ask the question if a very specific and highly relevant continuing professional education and network is buyable in smaller chunks off the shelf…
Is college worth it?
If you’re asking the question of whether or not you’re better off with additional education, the statistics are pretty clear on this. On average, you are much better off in the US today having attained a degree, particularly an advanced degree than you are with a high school education or less.
That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to spend $50,000 per year on it.
With the cost of a college tuition skyrocketing, people are being a little more discerning about what it is exactly that they’re getting for their money.
I’d break it down as follows:
An academic education - I took some very nice courses in college about Philosophy, the historical development of Asian Economics and Music History. I very much enjoyed them and found them to be intellectually stimulating.
A professional education - Learning to code, run financial spreadsheets, how to design on CAD programs or about the anatomy for pre-med—not to mention career direction itself and a path (Read more...)
There’s been an emergence of “pre-accelorator” or “people accelorator” programs—experiences that you can buy your way into with cash, as opposed to potentially valuable future equity, that replicate the education and network provided by the likes of YCombinator. They’re popping up in a variety of different verticals, led by one called On Deck and they’re causing a lot of people to ask the question if a very specific and highly relevant continuing professional education and network is buyable in smaller chunks off the shelf…
Is college worth it?
If you’re asking the question of whether or not you’re better off with additional education, the statistics are pretty clear on this. On average, you are much better off in the US today having attained a degree, particularly an advanced degree than you are with a high school education or less.
That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to spend $50,000 per year on it.
With the cost of a college tuition skyrocketing, people are being a little more discerning about what it is exactly that they’re getting for their money.
I’d break it down as follows:
An academic education - I took some very nice courses in college about Philosophy, the historical development of Asian Economics and Music History. I very much enjoyed them and found them to be intellectually stimulating.
A professional education - Learning to code, run financial spreadsheets, how to design on CAD programs or about the anatomy for pre-med—not to mention career direction itself and a path (Read more...)
This is Joseph
From the Washington Post:
Meanwhile, the inexorable arithmetic of dollars times demography has taken us past the point of no return. It’s no longer possible to say that, by starting now, we can avert massive, and massively unfair, changes in the promises we have made, or that current beneficiaries have nothing to worry about. That line was crossed even before the emergency budget blowout of 2020 added trillions to the debt tab we will dump on younger generations.
Honestly, how do we even address this one? First, national debt includes investment (like purchasing a house) and debt used to increase investment can actually improve the long term fiscal outlook of the nation. Second, there is not a shortage of resources to pay for social security. Before you call this an question of all of the programs, note this piece:
A start on mitigation would be for the Social Security Administration to begin including in beneficiary bulletins a disclosure that, starting soon, the system cannot fulfill all of its commitments. The disclosure could then provide sample calculations of the amount of savings a given recipient will need to replace those expected payments under alternative scenarios.
This is not a "Medicare only" concern. But are we really, as a nation, incapable of generating enough wealth to pay social security benefits? By 2035 (somewhat of a demographic local peak), these benefits are projected to rise from 5% of GDP to 6.1% of GDP. But there is room for (Read more...)
This is Joseph
From the Washington Post:
Meanwhile, the inexorable arithmetic of dollars times demography has taken us past the point of no return. It’s no longer possible to say that, by starting now, we can avert massive, and massively unfair, changes in the promises we have made, or that current beneficiaries have nothing to worry about. That line was crossed even before the emergency budget blowout of 2020 added trillions to the debt tab we will dump on younger generations.
Honestly, how do we even address this one? First, national debt includes investment (like purchasing a house) and debt used to increase investment can actually improve the long term fiscal outlook of the nation. Second, there is not a shortage of resources to pay for social security. Before you call this an question of all of the programs, note this piece:
A start on mitigation would be for the Social Security Administration to begin including in beneficiary bulletins a disclosure that, starting soon, the system cannot fulfill all of its commitments. The disclosure could then provide sample calculations of the amount of savings a given recipient will need to replace those expected payments under alternative scenarios.
This is not a "Medicare only" concern. But are we really, as a nation, incapable of generating enough wealth to pay social security benefits? By 2035 (somewhat of a demographic local peak), these benefits are projected to rise from 5% of GDP to 6.1% of GDP. But there is room for (Read more...)
I can’t get GameStop out of my head. If you want to understand some of the issues around the financial plumbing, and why they stopped trading, read this. I was reading Brian Lund’s excellent Lund Loop this morning and he made a lot of great points but one stuck out to me.
Though they may not have been aware of it before Thursday, WSB must know by now that they don’t control the real levers of power and that if the stock does not start the return to what’s considered a reasonable price soon, regulators will likely step in and suspend trading.
Yet there has been no mass selling. No rushing for the exits. In fact, the Twitter feeds and message boards have been consistent with one singular message – hold.
That’s the type of price action you get when someone doesn’t give a shit about losing money.
And if the longs supporting GME’s price have their money spread out in $500, $1000, or $5000 increments across millions of accounts, maybe they really don’t care.
I mean, what happens if FINRA suspends trading in the stock for 30 days, then when it re-opens, nobody sells.
What do they do then?
Over the course of this week, I have been commiserating online with my old pit trading buddies. For some reason, all of us feel some commonality with the WallStreetBets crowd. We are pulling for them. Not because we hate hedge funds. It has to do with that old pit (Read more...)
With last week’s news that Calendly raised a $350 million round at a $3 billion+ valuation, the largest venture round in Atlanta’s history, a number of people reached out to say congratulations. Of course, all credit goes to Tope Awotona and his team for building such an incredible business.
After the kudos, the most common question is, “How can the company possibly be so valuable?”
Easy, scheduling is a universal challenge.
Think of every job function that interacts with other people. Wait, that’s nearly every job function. Now, think of the last time it was a challenge to coordinate calendars for a meeting. Hmm, that’s all the time. Software is uniquely suited to make this problem go away. Calendly does this for more than 10 million people every month and that number is growing fast, super fast.
But, naturally, it wasn’t always this way. Every entrepreneur starts the same way — taking that first step. Tope shares his incredible personal and professional journey on How I Built This With Guy Roz — Calendly: Tope Awotona. Devastating family challenges. Lots of trial and error. Great vision. Amazing execution. Growth, growth, growth.
Congrats to Tope on building an iconic business and making millions of peoples’ lives easier.
I haven’t seen anyone mention this anywhere but Single Stock Futures would stop situations like GameStop from happening.
In my very first meeting when I was a board member at CME, under new business, I brought up single stock futures. Everyone agreed it was a great and needed idea. However, being at the top end of the learning curve, a few fellow board members gave me the chapter and verse of why it was an idea that would never see the light of day.
In the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, the focus was on securing legal certainty for over-the-counter derivatives. There were trillions in the notional value written that could be wiped out with one judge’s decision. Embedded in that same act was the beginning of Single Stock Futures (SSFs).
SSF’s were lobbied against extremely hard by Wall Street and options exchanges. The SEC basically killed them with the reporting, margin requirements and tax policies. They gave it a go for a number of years but the exchange failed. There just wasn’t any volume and that was due to the federal policies, not the demand.
Single stock futures should have been taxed exactly like futures, marked to market exactly like futures, and margined exactly like futures. Period.
Let’s suppose they existed today.
A Reddit group decides to attack a stock that is overly shorted. ABC company makes widgets. Wall Street hedge funds are short. They issue research on why they are short and lobby with other research analysts to (Read more...)
I generally try to stay out of fights, especially when they become mud-wrestling contests, but the battle between the hedge funds and Reddit investors just too juicy to ignore. As you undoubtedly know, the last few days have been filled with news stories of how small investors, brought together on online forums, have not only pushed up the stock prices of the stocks that they have targeted (GameStop, AMC, BB etc.), but in the process, driven some of the hedge funds that have sold short on these companies to edge of oblivion. The story resonates because it has all of the elements of a David versus Goliath battle, and given the low esteem that many hold Wall Street in, it has led to sideline cheerleading. Of course, as with everything in life, this story has also acquired political undertones, as populists on all sides, have found a new cause. I don't have an axe to grind in this fight, since I don't own GameStop or care much about hedge funds, but I am interested in how this episode will affect overall markets and whether I need to change the ways in which I invest and trade.
Short Sales and Squeezes
I know that you want to get to the GameStop story quickly, but at the risk of boring or perhaps even insulting you, I want to lay the groundwork by talking about the mechanics of a short sale as well as how short sellers can sometimes get squeezed. When most (Read more...)
I generally try to stay out of fights, especially when they become mud-wrestling contests, but the battle between the hedge funds and Reddit investors just too juicy to ignore. As you undoubtedly know, the last few days have been filled with news stories of how small investors, brought together on online forums, have not only pushed up the stock prices of the stocks that they have targeted (GameStop, AMC, BB etc.), but in the process, driven some of the hedge funds that have sold short on these companies to edge of oblivion. The story resonates because it has all of the elements of a David versus Goliath battle, and given the low esteem that many hold Wall Street in, it has led to sideline cheerleading. Of course, as with everything in life, this story has also acquired political undertones, as populists on all sides, have found a new cause. I don't have an axe to grind in this fight, since I don't own GameStop or care much about hedge funds, but I am interested in how this episode will affect overall markets and whether I need to change the ways in which I invest and trade.
Short Sales and Squeezes
I know that you want to get to the GameStop story quickly, but at the risk of boring or perhaps even insulting you, I want to lay the groundwork by talking about the mechanics of a short sale as well as how short sellers can sometimes get squeezed. When most (Read more...)