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  • Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business, Says Jason Calacanis

    Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business, Says Jason Calacanis

    “Uber built a very anti-fragile business in regards to having the Eats business and having the Rides business,” says early Uber investor Jason Calacanis. “When the Ride’s business went down that kind of indicates people are staying home. When they stay home they use Uber Eats and increasingly Drizly, Cornershop, and Postmates. Watching the Uber team take on this challenge of the pandemic year has been really impressive.”

    Early Uber investor Jason Calacanis says that unlike Lyft, Uber built a very anti-fragile business with the combination of Eats and Rides and has become relentlessly focused:

    Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business

    What we’re really going to see here is that Uber built a very anti-fragile business in regards to having the Eats business and having the Rides business. When the Ride’s business went down that kind of indicates people are staying home. When they stay home they use Uber Eats and increasingly Drizly, Cornershop, and Postmates. People are ordering groceries. Watching the Uber team take on this challenge of the pandemic year has been really impressive.

    It reminds me a lot of Disney and how they got focused around Disney+ as the center of the organization. They looked at what was happening in the pandemic and said parks are great, merch is great, movies are great, let’s just put everything into Disney+ and accelerate that. Look what happened to that company. I’ve got to give Dara Khosrowshahi a lot of credit. He got rid of a lot of the noise like self-driving cars which are a multi-decade kind of vision. He sold off the places where they weren’t going to be in first, second, or even third place. He did JVs and sold off those businesses like Russia and China, etc. That’s well documented.

    The Space Can’t Have 50 Players Losing Money

    They found a new really inspiring footing which is if Amazon is two-day delivery going to one-day, Uber’s is one-hour delivery going to 10-minute delivery. That is Travis Kalanick’s original vision for Uber. When I met with him when he was building the company and I was the third or fourth investor his vision was this is a logistic company. We took atoms in the world made them bits on the internet. Now we’re going to take bits on your phone, an app, and we’re going to move atoms in the real world. That was his original pitch. Here we are in decade two where I’m still own the same shares I’ve had since I bought them for a penny or whatever back in 2008 or 2009. I remain super bullish. I have a huge position in Uber and I’m going to hold it for the next decade.

    It’s fairly obvious that there are acquisitions and consolidation that need to happen in the space in order for it to be profitable. The space can’t have 50 players losing money. We’ve watched Lyft, Postmates, Doordash, and everybody, say that we’re going to have to charge what this product is worth. We’re going to have to stop burning money. There’s no free VC money. The public markets are not down with lose money forever and grow. I think we found a happy medium here between what public market investors want, profits, and what private market investors want, growth.

    Uber Has Become Relentlessly Focused

    I think Dara has done an exceptional job. Some things will come from acquisitions but most of it has to be just relentless execution and focus. That is the inspiring part of what happened here. Uber has become relentlessly focused. Things that were coming in 10 or 20 years like self-driving in all likelihood will be a commodity business. In 10 or 20 years there’ll be five companies who have that technology. VTOLs are very fascinating and very interesting, but again that’s probably seven, eight, nine, or ten years off as a very niche product.

    Uber Built A Very Anti-Fragile Business, Says Jason Calacanis
  • Tesla Rocks Bitcoin Market With $1.5 Billion Purchase

    Tesla Rocks Bitcoin Market With $1.5 Billion Purchase

    Tesla announced in an SEC filing Monday that it has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin. “We invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or longterm.” Tesla also announced that they will accept bitcoin as payment going forward. “Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.”

    This news rocked the bitcoin market causing bitcoin prices to soar to record heights. For the first time ever bitcoin moved above $43,000 and currently (as of this writing) sits at $43,735.84.

    Tesla SEC Filing:

    In January 2021, we updated our investment policy to provide us with more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not
    required to maintain adequate operating liquidity. As part of the policy, which was duly approved by the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors, we may
    invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified
    in the future. Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or longterm. Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a
    limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.

  • Short Selling Is Vice Described As Virtue, Says Elon Musk

    Short Selling Is Vice Described As Virtue, Says Elon Musk

    “There’s a perniciously false effective markets argument made for shorting,” says Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “It is vice disguised as virtue. Short selling is frankly used against the public. We don’t have shorting in private companies. The vast majority of companies, over 90 percent are private, and you cannot short them. Yet somehow, private companies get things done.”

    Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, explains in an interesting interview with Sandy Munro, why short selling is an attack on the people and is actually vice but described by its greedy advocates as virtue:

    Short Selling Is An Attack On The People

    There are very few areas in life where you can sell things that you don’t own. Short selling, where you can sell shares that you don’t own, when I said it was vestigial I meant it came from an era when stocks were traded by people traveling on horseback to exchange stock certificates. In order to have the transaction speed not take weeks, somebody would say well the stock certificate is coming on that horse. I don’t have the stock certificate right now but I promise you that I’m getting the stock certificate and the rider is going to be here in New York from Chicago in three days and then I’ll be able to give you the stock certificate.

    That’s where this whole silly thing arose. But then the problem is like the way short selling is used today is it’s frankly used against the public. Most people aren’t aware that short selling even exists. Then the ones that are aware very few of them know actually how to use it. It’s basically like .01 percent of stockholders know how to use short positions to get ahead. I think it is effectively an attack on the public.

    It Is Vice Disguised As Virtue

    Tesla was under a massive attack by the short and distort, where they take a short position and then they do everything possible to trash the company six ways to Sunday, and they were successful. This has now happened to Tesla twice. It happened in 2013, and it happened in 2017 through 2019. The intensity of the attack was crazy. I was like man, it would cause you to lose faith in humanity, the extent of the greed of this that went on.

    We don’t have shorting in private companies. The vast majority of companies, over 90 percent are private, and you cannot short them. Yet somehow, private companies get things done. There’s a perniciously false effective markets argument made for shorting. It is vice disguised as virtue.

  • You Haven’t Seen a Mass Social Media User Revolt

    You Haven’t Seen a Mass Social Media User Revolt

    The social media space is pretty ripe for disruption says tech investor Geoff Lewis. Lewis likes to invest against the grain, what he calls counter-narrative, and is actively looking at startups in that sector. Lewis says that there has been a lot of noise from regulators but that users are still using social media products. He says that thus far you haven’t seen any sort of mass user revolt.

    Geoff Lewis, the founder of Bedrock Capital and an early tech investor in many companies including Lyft, recently discussed the future of social media and more on CNBC:

    You Haven’t Seen a Mass Social Media User Revolt

    The social media space is pretty ripe for disruption. There’s always this trade-off between privacy and communications and so we want as users and consumers to be able to communicate with our friends and to be connected, but we also want our privacy.

    Then there’s this question of does the privacy thing ever get shifted too far to a point where people revolt? Thus far you haven’t seen any sort of mass user revolt. A lot of the noise has been in the markets with regulators, but the users are still using the product.

    It’s a Narrative Violation to Invest in Social Media

    I actually think it’s a narrative violation to be doing things in social media today as a start-up and what we’re focused on at Bedrock is investing in these companies that are counter-narrative. So I think the idea of investing in a social media business today, especially early stage as a venture capitalist, is very unfashionable.

    So it’s something that we’d be very up for and have been looking at some new companies in that sector.


  • The Best Companies Have Very Bright Futures

    The Best Companies Have Very Bright Futures

    The best companies have very bright futures says tech investor Geoff Lewis. He says that the way he always thinks about private company valuations is as a discount on the future versus a premium on the past. Lewis says that the future is bright for Lyft because only half a percent of the rides in the US today are shared rides so there is a lot of room to grow.

    Geoff Lewis, the founder of Bedrock Capital and an early tech investor in many companies including Lyft, recently discussed the future of Lyft, social media, Bitcoin, and more on CNBC:

    The Best Companies Have Very Bright Futures

    The way that I always think about these private company valuations is as a discount on the future versus a premium on the past. I learned this from Peter Thiel who I worked with for many years. The best companies have very bright futures.

    If you think about Lyft, for example, only half a percent of the rides in the US today are shared rides. The entire remainder of rides in the US are normal rides. So there’s a lot of room for a company like Lyft in the US alone to grow if they can even capture two percent of rides in the US.

    There Are Some Dogs that are Going to Go Out This Year

    I think there’s a pretty bright future for the good tech companies. Quite honestly, there are some dogs that are going to go out this year and they’re not going to do well. But ultimately, the great thing about technology is the macro tends to matter less in the long term for the really enduring tech companies.

    You want to find these businesses that have these really durable revenue models that are going to be able to grow for many years going forward. It’s a hard hard thing to figure out.

    The Trend for 2019 is the End of Trends

    I’m personally very interested in new approaches to financing education and new approaches actually getting an education. I really do think the university and the college system is very broke and there are new financial instruments out there that can really help folks through education. We have some exciting stuff that we’ve been working that we will be talking about in 2019.

    Beyond that, I’d say the trend for 2019 is the end of trends. We’ve gone through so many hype cycles in technology and I really think we’re in an environment where we just have to find one-of-a-kind things that don’t fit into any easy to categorize categories. I think that makes the job of being an investor a lot harder.

  • Puerto Rico Is An Ideal Business Destination

    This is a sponsored post written by WebProNews on behalf of Puerto Rico for IZEA.

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    Puerto Rico not only provides an amazing global experience, but is an ideal place to a raise a family, with top quality English and bilingual schools, U.S certified health care professionals and institutions, luxury living alternatives, five star beaches, golf and gastronomy.

    For investors to bring their company to Puerto Rico, investors can feel safe as every tax incentive granted constitutes a contract with the government of Puerto Rico that is legally guaranteed and protected by United States law, thus providing a favorable environment to continue forging alliances and driving investment.

    With an ever-growing array of services and emerging industries, the government has created an aggressive economic and tax incentives program.

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  • Google Talk Deals With Deep Value Investing

    “Deep Value: Why Activist Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations” is a book by Tobias Carlisle, but also the topic of an hour-long discussion hosted by Google last month.

    This is part of the “Talks at Google” series, and Google just recently made it available via its YouTube channel.

    The book is described as an “exploration of the philosophy of deep value investment.”

    “It describes the evolution of the various theories of intrinsic value and activist investment from Benjamin Graham to Warren Buffett to Carl Icahn and beyond,” the video description says. “Filled with engaging anecdotes, penetrating statistical analysis and meticulous research, the book illustrates the principles and strategies of deep value investing and examines the counterintuitive idea behind its extraordinary performance.”

    The talk was recorded on November 20.

    Image via YouTube

  • Félix Trinidad Makes Debt Deal After Millions Lost

    The story of Félix “Tito” Trinidad Jr. and his lost millions may be sad to fans and onlookers, but the situation is unfortunately so common in sports it’s almost predictable.

    It’s not at all uncommon for mega-wealthy athletes to lose their millions after their sports careers are over. The culprits are typically shady hanger-on types who turn out to have no common sense whatsoever when it comes to money and investments.

    According to the El Nuevo Dia newspaper, the boxer is thought to have lost no less than $63 million thanks to someone close to him and his father, Trinidad Sr.

    The 41-year-old former boxing champion is claiming that Jose “Pepe” Ramos was responsible for losing his money through bad investments. Ramos was something of an aide to Trinidad. There are reports that Ramos even acted as his English translator.

    The family friend was hired to help out with managing the boxer’s millions. Ramos allegedly made the decision to gamble on Puerto Rican government bonds.

    The economic situation in Puerto Rico is dire, and recently the country’s government bonds were downgraded to junk bond status. This rendered the millions invested virtually worthless.

    Following the catastrophic loss of fortune, Trinidad reportedly has 9 million in assets. Unfortunately for the boxer, he also has $30 million worth of debt.

    Trinidad is thought to have made close to $90 million over a boxing career that spanned roughly 18 years. He featured in 21 title fights and holds the record as the longest reigning welterweight title holder at 6 years and 4 months.

    The biggest purse in Trinidad’s career came after his “fight of the century” against famed boxer Oscar de la Hoya. He made over $10 million on the fight.

    That money and the majority of what he earned is now gone, leaving the boxer scrambling to pay off his bills.

    On April 10th, Trinidad and his legal team asked that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority intercede in the matter. They complained that Ramos spent the money without the boxer’s knowledge or permission. Ramos claims that the accusations against him are false.

    On Tuesday the boxer managed to reach a temporary debt deal with a local bank. The agreement with Banco Popular halts a payment of $2.9 million that had been sought by the institution.

    Trinidad is to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on June 8th.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • What Would You Invest in if You Were Google?

    What Would You Invest in if You Were Google?

    Earlier this month, it was revealed that Google Ventures is investing in coupon startup Whaleshark Media. Then reports came out about Google Ventures investing in Rocket Lawyer.

    Google has so many of its own projects going on at any given time, but the company maintains that the majority of its resources are still being put into the company’s core businesses – search and advertising. “That’s our core focus,” CEO Larry Page recently told investors, saying that they’re not betting the farm on things like self-driving cars.

    But Google Ventures, Google’s investment arm, is putting its eggs in quite a few different baskets. “We look at companies in a wide variety of sectors and stages. Many of our investments are in the areas you might expect, such as consumer Internet, software, and mobile — but we’re also backing companies in areas that might surprise you — from human anti-body discovery to smart grid platforms,” Google Ventures says. “We aim to invest about $100 million a year, with deal sizes ranging from seed investments as small as a hundred thousand dollars to late-stage investments of tens of millions of dollars.”

    So just what is Google Ventures investing in?

    Antibody Discovery

    Google Ventures invests in Adimab, a platform for yeast-based antibody discovery.

    Social Learning Games for Kids

    The firm invests in Airy Labs, which creates learning games for kids between the ages of 5 and 13.

    Fuel

    Google Ventures invests in CoolPlanetBioFuels, which works to develop these kinds of fuels using plant photosynthesis.

    Language Learning

    Google Ventures invests in English Central, which uses web videos to create language learning experiences. “Google Ventures has opened many doors for us into the wider Google ecosystem,” says Founder/CEO Alan Schwartz. “From YouTube through Android connections, we have benefited from Google Ventures’ unique status as a financial investor, with deep strategic tentacles. This has been much more than mere intros to potential partners or potentially useful technology complements; it has also included intros to experts on areas like user experience and conversion.”

    Offline Information Discovery

    Google Ventures invests in Hipster, which is described as “a fun way to help uncover the vast amount of information about real world locations that isn’t yet available online.”

    Therapeutics

    Google Ventures invests in iPierian, which works in cellular repogramming in creating therapeutics.

    Legal Q&A

    Google invests in LawPivot, a legal Q&A site that connects companies with crowdsourced legal answers from legal professionals.

    Cars

    Google Ventures invests in American car company Next Autoworks, which it says will introduce a safe, high-quality fuel-efficient car for the U.S. market.

    Predicting the Future

    Google invests in Recorded Future. We looked at this before. It’s essentially a tool that predicts the future when you enter the what, the who/where and the when.

    Car Sharing

    Google invests in Relay Rides, which the company says, “enables car owners to make money while providing those in need of a car with affordable access to one.”

    Retail Price Tracking

    Google invests in Shopobot, which tracks price changes at popular stores.

    Weather Insurance

    The firm invests in WeatherBill, which provides weather insurance products that are described as “technologically advanced.”

    That’s not everything that Google Ventures invests in, but are some of the most outside the box companies and areas. You can see all of the companies Google Ventures invests in here.

    Fortune’s Dan Primack brings up an interesting question, following Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility: “Will Google and Motorola ‘venture’ together?”

  • New York: Where It’s At for Startups?

    It’s an interesting time to launch a startup, which is why you see so many popping up all the time. Word from ad:tech NY is that New York has become the ideal place to start up a startup. "It’s a lot easier and cheaper to start a companies these days," says Linda Gridley, of investment banking firm Gridley & Company. "There’s just a ton of innovation going on."

    A few stats she dropped include: 65 of the Forbes 400 live in NYC, there are 2,000 Google employees in New York, there are 175 funding sources focused on digital in New York, and there are over 1,000 Internet tech companies in NYC. 

    One reason in particular that it’s a good time to have an innovative startup is that the big companies are going hog-wild when it comes to mergers and acquisitions.

    "Clearly the message is that the stakes are going up fom the M&A perspective," says Gridley. Google itself has made 24 acquisitions this year based on talent and technology. IBM has acquired 15 (mostly geared more toward data and analytics).

    Over 200 startups have been founded in NY in last 4 years, she said, and they’re disrupting many established categories. "We think that should be a huge warning sign…" Leaders of traditional companies, take note.

    Some advice she had for sellers: "Really consider what your current offering is and what kind of transaction could make you part of a broader offering." Also, she said to think through what your opportunities are, disconnect valuation between buyers and sellers, and act early, because next year, the M&A market might get kind of crowded. "Be reasonable on valuation if you are in a crowded sector," she said. "Build the most attractive customer base that you can before you sell."

    For buyers, she had some more advice: consider all potential acquisition candidates (not just the ones in the market), understand the competitive differentiation and potential threats, and stretch for key capabilities as they are only going to get more expensive.

    Finally, to investors, she advised, innovation is happening at a faster pace – don’t miss, earlier stage companies – be thoughtful because there are lots of risks, and NYC is "where it’s happening."

  • fbFund No More?

    Things have been a little slow on the fbFund front this year. The site hasn’t posed an update since January, and you probably won’t be hearing about new ventures anytime soon.

    Inside Facebook reports that fbFund appears to be "mothballed". fbFund is a seed fund and joint venture run by Facebook Founders Fund and Accel Partners. Investment capital for the fund was provided by these entities.

    fBfund gave startups up to $100k in investment, as well as access to key people, presentations on technology, product, marketing, and business topics, mentorship, and even office space. Eric Eldon writes:

    After noticing that the company has been completely quiet about fbFund plans so far this year, we asked it about its plans. "At this time we have no plans for future iterations of the program," a company spokesperson tells us, “but we will keep you posted as soon as we have anything new to share.” The company also says that it will "continue to support innovation from the startup community through initiatives like the developer garage program."

    fbFund operated for two years, funding companies building Facebook’s developer platform, and as Eldon points out, it has kind of taken a backseat to the big boom in the social gaming market.