philrapo's comments

What about:

4. 3-D models are available for purchase to instantly print an item in any dimensions you'd like.

It's funny, but people in NYC rarely get to know their neighbors, regardless of rent vs. own. Cultural thing I guess. Maybe it helps ignore the extremely crowded population density.

exactly. Wall Street is enamored with distributed databases, i.e. "shared replicated ledgers". Not the specific bitcoin blockchain or cryptocurrency.

Blockchain as a term has become a bit like Kleenex. It's just a generic term to describe a distributed database

If institutional investors were responsible for the decrease in volatility, I'd think we would've seen a corresponding increase in liquidity. (It's the additional liquidity and depth of market that they presumably would provide that dampen the price swings). I haven't run the data recently, but anecdotally I don't think liquidity has improved much.

The most liquid/highest volume period was still the run to $1000.

"specialize" is good advice to get paid more. Specialization is why wall street people get paid so much.

There are typically only a handful of people with relevant expertise trading [XYZ esoteric product], and when a company wants to enter that new business line, they have no choice but to settle for someone inexperienced or pay up for specialization.

Choosing the proper specialization is a different story...

fair point. Though if you never hit the firewall, you'd also probably never sign up.

You could also pay for WSJ journalism. I'm surprised HN doesn't ever seem to care about this issue.

Here's an infographic showing ownership in Box as they IPO'ed. https://equityzen.com/blog/box-path-to-ipo/

what war did napster win?

That's an interesting way of framing it. A 1x liquidation preference is like buying a loan at 0.50 on the dollar.

A 0x liquidation preference (insurance that you'll get your original investment back) would be more "bond-like" to me.

Good point that the employee can similarly adjust his/her price on the compensation offer. Unfortunately, I think a lot of employees in SV dont understand the dynamics at hand here.

If you are an early employee, it's also not possible to know if the company will accept a 2x liquidation pref investor in the future.

Thanks.

It would seem like a 0x liquidation preference would provide protection in this scenario. i.e. VC is guaranteed to get his original investment back, but not a multiple of it.

"Say the VC puts in 5M, gets 20% equity. The founder sells for 5M"

VC could just get the 5M back in this case.

Love the visualizations. It would be great if we could look more closely / zoom in, rather than only seeing the overview.

>"Regulation" is a polite word, so it's easy to lose track of what it really means. But what it really means is policing.

The FCC polices the tv/radio/satellite/cable industry, but it also writes regulations that affect the business.

It is preferable to have a head of FCC with industry knowledge. Having industry experience does not automatically make one corrupt or criminal, which seems to be your line of thinking.

>Contrary to what the Republicans tell you, ours is not a planned economy in which government bureaucrats are making operational decisions.

Ours is not a centrally planned economy, but regulators can still enact policies that positively or negatively affect how an industry functions.

The IRS tax code is quite possibly the worst example to use, if you are trying to point to well written regulation. Almost 74,000 pages of tax code. [1]

Though I agree that investment banking advice would be irrelevant here.

[1] http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations...

>Do you really think any company is going to hire an honest, competent ex-regulator who has made a career of fining and frustrating their top executives - and possibly referring them to prosecutors?

Yes, absolutely. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that competent and strict regulators are not in demand by the private sector. They clearly have valuable experience, advice, and skills. A timely example is Ben Lawsky, former head of the NY DFS, who is often referred to as one of the "most feared" regulators in banking. I have no doubt he will find himself in demand by the private sector. Another example is Mary Shapiro, former head of the SEC, who now works for Promontory Financial (along with dozens of former regulators) providing consulting services and regulatory advice for the private sector. [1]

>Well, yes, my point exactly. "Lots of people doing it means it's okay" is one view.

So after one does public service, they should not be allowed to work in the private sector? How is that not okay? I think that people should be free to work whereever they like, provided the do not break laws. There is nothing illegal about taking a profitable position after public service.

[1] http://www.promontory.com/Bios.aspx?id=2731

So are you then suggesting that it's preferable to have regulators who never had hands-on industry experience in their relevant sector?

>Everyone knew that Goldman Sachs owned most of the politicians and regulatory groups before.

I didnt know this. Source please?

While the "revolving door" between banks and regulators clearly presents some problems, consider the alternative.

I personally hate the idea of career politicians who have no practical experience in the private sector trying to write laws. (We see examples of bad legislation all the time from people who are clueless about tech, for example). Finance and central banking are very complicated areas, and I'd prefer to see regulations written by those who have an intricate and practical understanding of how those industries/markets work.

It makes sense to me that the most qualified regulators would be those who spent years in the private sector working at places like GS.

And on the flip side, it makes sense that private firms would be interested in hiring former govt officials and regulators who best understand how compliance and regulation work from the inside. It's like wanting to have an ex-IRS guy do your taxes. Regulators and public officlas who spent years earning little pay and doing public service also want to monetize their experience and finally get a good paycheck after leaving office. (Lots of examples of this in the bitcoin space lately.. e.g. Arthur Leavitt.. it's not just happening at goldman sachs).

In this article, it sounds like a foolish (and possibly illegal) decision by a 29 year old former Fed guy, and as soon as it was identified by Goldman, they self-reported the issue to make it public. What else are they supposed to do?

Good commentary from Matt Levine @ Bloomberg:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-29/high-speed-...

"Is this bad? I mean, look, one: It doesn't matter at all. We'll get to that. But, two: Sure, it's bad! It's symbolically stupid. The point of the Form 4 is that the SEC wants everyone to know when corporate insiders buy or sell stock, so that all the little investors can compete on a level playing field. As a goal, this has its problems, but it's a goal. For the SEC itself to give this disclosure to the little investors after professionals get it is not a great look. " ...

"But when I say it doesn't matter at all, I mean, it does not matter at all. The idea here is that subscribing to a news service or data terminal gives "professional traders an edge over mom-and-pop investors." The article really says that. Now, this seems pretty obvious. Most of the time, professionals using professional tools will be better at doing things than amateurs using amateur tools. There are very few fields of human endeavor where professionals do not have an edge over moms and pops. But investing might come closest! You and your mom and your pop can just index! It is great, you will beat the majority of professional fund managers every year." ...

"if you are a mom-or-pop investor, and you are day-trading the stock of a $950 million specialty chemicals company based on your instant reaction to news that a non-executive director has bought $194,000 worth of stock,5 then you have already lost all your money. Nothing that I, or the SEC, or Eric Schneiderman, could ever do will help you. You are doomed."

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