From the Visual Capitalist, an infographic that helps you visualize all the world’s money… I cut off the bottom of the original graphic, which is derivatives, as (a) that market is humongous, but (b) the net total of the trillions in derivatives is $0, as every buyer has a matching writer, and thus that is a zero-sum market, unlike stocks or housing or gold. Hopefully the Visual...
I met Joel Solomon five years ago. Someone pointed me to him as knowledgeable and experienced. I knew of his work Renewal Funds, and a few years ago visited his Hollyhock on Cortes Island in British Columbia, Canada to attend his Social Venture Institute. (Disclosure: sometime in all that he agreed to invest a tiny amount into Fledge, one of my contributions to the field of social good.)...
Two weeks ago Morgan Simon announced her new book, Real Impact. I was going to toss it on the end of my queue, not expecting it to be part of my quest for answers to inequality, but was proven wrong. First and foremost, the book is the best primer I’ve read on impact investing. The first half walks through why we need to align capital with social and environmental solutions and the second...
Twice in the last year I felt obliged to post about politics, given few others speaking up. This time it is right fundamental human right for the people to choose their own government. What is utterly amazing to me is that we live in a world where the voting booth can choose not only the members of government, but the borders of the country itself. For millennia, borders were only moved by guns...
After enjoying most of Capital in the 21st Century I couldn’t pass up reading what is clearly supposed to be a counter-argument: Anti-Picketty. It’s not one, but twenty-four arguments against Picketty’s conclusions and claims, by more than twenty-four economists and think tankers. Despite 24 authors, this books is less than a half the length of Capital and despite a lot of...
Entrepreneurs (and investors) too often conflate risks and uncertainty. It is often said that entrepreneurs are those people who are not risk averse. As an entrepreneur, that has always felt wrong. I’ve never jumped from an airplane. Never would go rock climbing without a rope. I once owned a motorcycle, but not before taking the Washington State safety course. No, it’s not about...
Being an entrepreneur is hard. The ups and down of startup life are far larger and stronger than most other jobs. Working with entrepreneurs isn’t much better, as the empathy is almost are wary. I’ve worked with dozens upon dozens of entrepreneurs at Fledge and dozens more at PGS and elsewhere. Most handle these stresses in stride. Sure, they have some sleepless nights and...
I learned to code 35 years ago. For 30 years, I self identified as a techie. I still follow technology, but what I’ve learned in my greying-hair years is that technology is a tool. One of many. One that is generally best applied judiciously, if at all. Meanwhile, the ongoing excitement about technology makes entrepreneurs think otherwise. This excitement goes back over 100 years, to...
From The Wealth of Nations to The Divide, I’ve spent months with my nose in a book looking for answers to income and wealth inequality. Meanwhile, down on a trip to Lima in Peru, simply walking around answered one key question that keeps going unanswered by the writers, “Where does inequality lead us to?“ When that question comes up in my circle of friends, the conversation...
It has been four months since Debt: The First 5,000 Years, and my quest to find answers to inequality. In that time I came across The Divide, by Jason Hickel, which claimed in the subtitle “A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and it’s Solutions” to provide not just problems but also solutions. That jumped it to the top of my growing stack of books. The first two thirds of the...
