Barack’s Technology Potential
12 November 2008Barack Obama has already let it be known that he will be seeking a Chief Technology Officer for the United States of America. Wow! Really?
For me, this is right up there with the current PM of Australia running on a platform of broadband to the masses, and one to one education to the children.
Australia is living in the 21st century, based on its last election and current administration. Perhaps the U.S. can now leave the 18th or 17th century, and join them. That would be a relief.
Tonight, at the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) Annual Predictions Dinner, I had the chance to be on a panel with Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint (and past co – founder, Blue Nile, the most successful online jewelry site); Matt McIlwain, managing director, Madrona Ventures; and Kelly Smith, Founding Partner, Curious Office.
The panel was moderated by John Cook, who has just come off writing a great column for the Seattle Times on local venture ops, to joining hands with well-known SNS member Todd Bishop, to form a new local site called Techflash.
The whole evening was enjoyable. Some of the high points: everyone had a very high regard for Amazon’s cloud compute data center. My suggestion of Microsoft being the stock to own going forward a year seemed to be well accepted, as at least a smart defensive maneuver. Matt and I had some ideas about what might be done with EMC and VMware to make gobs more money than they are currently making, despite their recent capture of our genius / friend Paul Maritz.
I think the seasoned folk convinced the general crowd that more bad things were coming, both in the equities markets and on Main St., but that there were several ways to the exits, if you were paying attention.
I will soon be writing a full newsletter on this subject, and Members will learn more about which companies will be coming back first, in my estimation, and why.
All in all, it was a delightful eventing, and I thank Ken Meyer and the WTIA for including me, once again, in their Predictions Dinner.
Now I will start getting ready for our private release of SNS predictions for 2009. These seem, increasingly, like the things folks could make real money on. I hope we will see you with us in New York, at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel, on December 11th, for our Fourth Annual meeting.
3 Responses to “Barack’s Technology Potential”
November 12th, 2008 at 10:45 am
The TERP
Hank Paulson, revisionist.
The TARP is no longer the TARP. It is the TERP. That’s Troubled Equity Relief Program. Not to be confused with the Moral Hazard Generation Scheme.
Mortgage assets aren’t even going to be bought anymore. It looks like auto-loan securities and credit-card receivables will be though: sop to Detroit or taxpayer investment at the peak of a collapsing market? You decide.
This is revisionism of a grand scale and we don’t imagine congress will be pleased. We don’t want to spoil the fun though. Read excepts of the revised TARP plan and its redacted history, courtesy of the Treasury Secretary for yourself:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/11/12/18152/the-terp/
Mark, This is another way of making money for those who don’t read your newsletter:-) Tim
November 13th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Insight: ‘Bretton Woods Two’?
By Bridget Kendall
BBC diplomatic correspondent
A deep-seated global crisis is often a chance to redraw the map, reflecting shifts in the balance of power in different ways.
First, the crisis can confirm or nudge ahead trends which seem to be happening anyway – like the shift of power from Western to emerging Eastern players.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7724298.stm
Mark, I hope that Obama realises that the emerging economies have zero interest in US (aka western and totally discredited) centric views of any new financial system. Tim
November 14th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Systemic Risk, Contagion and Trade Finance – Back to the Bad Old Days
from London Banker by London Banker
Back in the old days (pre-1980s), the term systemic risk did not refer to contagion of illiquidity within the financial sector alone. Back then, when the real economy was much more important than low margin, unglamorous banking, it was understood that the really scary systemic risk was the risk of contagion of illiquidity from the financial sector to the real economy of trade in real goods and real services.
If you think of it, every single non-cash commercial transaction requires the intermediation of banks on behalf of – at the very least – the buyer and the seller. If you lengthen the supply chain to producers, exporters and importers and allow for agents along the way, the chain of banks involved becomes quite long and complex.
http://londonbanker.blogspot.com/2008/11/systemic-risk-contagion-and-trade.html
Mark, If banks are not re-constrained to be just good old banks the new tech ventures will have difficulty trading. Most new tech stuff needs a ww market to recoup investment. To revitalize the commercial banks, their toxic crap must be grabbed and re-housed (no $ paid for it) and then see who is left standing / worthy re-capitalizing. This toxic stuff is evidence for the cops and should be treated as such. Tim