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Through their own actions, customers can hold companies responsible to higher standards of social responsibility. Through collective action, they can leverage their dollars to combat the force of those investors who myopically pursue profits at the expense of the rest of society.
When it comes to owning stocks of the best-known businesses in the world, value investors usually feel like children looking through the window of the candy store, unable to afford the treats inside because they refuse to pay the prices such high-quality franchises typically bear.
For the life of me, I cannot understand Clinton and her proposed across-the-board tax hikes on individuals, businesses and investors. I cannot fathom her plans for increased regulatory burdens, which include more government-run healthcare and a halt to the fossil-fuel energy boom.
Over the past several decades, a growing number of investors have been choosing to put their money in funds that screen companies for their environmental and labor records. Some socially responsible investors are starting to add free expression and privacy to their list of criteria.
In terms of challenges, I think finding the right people to maximize the chances the business will succeed is the hardest thing. You can crunch the numbers any way you want, but at the end of the day, you really need good employees and investors - and they aren't always easy to find.
There were never as many big businesses as people were piling money into in the late 90's or early 2000's. This is really a lesson to institutional investors about how much capital the market can absorb, and it's a 10-year adjustment cycle, and we're only beginning to wake up to that.
In the past, when venture-funded startups told their investors they'd found a profitable business model, the first thing VCs would do is to start looking for an 'operating exec' - usually an MBA who would act as the designated 'adult' and take over the transition from Search to Build.
Virtual reality is a tough sell for a software developer. They have to convince investors that not only are they going to build a good game, which is what they normally have to do, they have to convince them that it's going to be a good game and that virtual reality will be successful.
I think the tech stock, the public market is still completely traumatized by the dotcom crash. I think the investors and reporters and analysts and everybody is determined to not get taken advantage of again, and that is what everybody who lived through 2000, what they kind of remember.
If investors avoid the Treasury market, we could be unable to pay off maturing securities, which would mean an immediate default. Market participants generally agree that even a brief default would create potentially catastrophic risks to the financial system, like the meltdown of 2008.
If I bring to light a company that's poisoning customers, defrauding investors, or something like that... there just aren't enough regulators in the world to keep up with all of the fraud and malfeasance that goes on out there, particularly in the little nooks and crannies of the market.
I know how to finance something. It's easier today because, as you're more successful, everybody wants to do deals with you. But even in the beginning, when I took Landry's public, I owned 100 percent of it. I never had investors or anything. I was just always able to find a way to do it.
After graduating in International Relations in 2011, I turned down safe, corporate job offers and instead accepted a position at an 'incubator' in L.A. - a tech word for a team of people who are funded by investors to create apps. I knew the future was digital and that I had to take a risk.
Picking winners among the many young companies seeking money is a tough business, even for the most sophisticated investors. Indeed, most professionally run venture funds lose money. For individuals, it's pure folly. Buy a lottery ticket instead. Your chance of winning is likely to be higher.
The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests.
Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, has seen a few financial schemes in his time. As the lead local prosecutor in the world's financial capital, he has battled frauds like the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which stole billions of dollars from investors worldwide.
To economists, prices serve as crucial signals to producers and consumers. In a regulated market, the state sets prices high enough for private companies to cover their costs and earn a guaranteed profit for their investors. But in a deregulated market, prices should vary with demand and supply.
My job is to support businesses, that means promoting British commerce in the big emerging markets that have been neglected in the past. It means keeping Britain open to inward investors, trade and skilled workers. It means cutting red tape which is suffocating growing companies which create jobs.
Whether an economic boom is fueled by the fashion industry or technology innovations, it needs a brick-and-mortar foundation. This is not only true in New York and San Francisco; wherever you live, you can find a local hotspot positioned to attract interest from businesses, consumers and investors.
While I take no pleasure in others' misfortunes, we've historically made most of our profits from other investors behaving in a panicked and irrational fashion and selling us certain stocks at prices far below their intrinsic value. More volatility equals cheaper stocks, which equals higher returns.
In the early years of Rent the Runway, our challenge was twofold: getting investors to buy into our vision for how the world was changing and getting women to understand that renting was a viable - let alone a smarter - alternative to spending hundreds of dollars on dresses they would wear just once.
In India, I personally believe yes, there is a clear fear of unknown; there's a lot of risk aversions in science and technology. They want predictability in everything they do, and it starts from people. It starts from investors. It starts from the regulators. You see that mindset across the society.
Hundreds of investors ask me questions each year about the dilemmas they confront. Their worst problem? Uncertainty. They are traumatized and become emotional or confused to the state of inaction. Even worse, they try to solve a short-term problem in a way that hurts them financially in the long run.
There is not necessarily a good reason why a regulator should have to be involved in product design and marketing for rich and sophisticated investors. We recommend that such investors should be able to sign a piece of paper, which allows them to go ahead and buy unregulated products at their own risk.
We are patriotic enough to believe there is no good reason why foreign investors from Europe cannot be expected to resolve any disputes fairly through British justice, operating through British courts. And we are European enough to think that our companies can do the same by relying on European courts.
Most startup entrepreneurs unnecessarily spend half their time and give up half their equity in search of funding from angel investors and venture capitalists. Tens of millions of dollars are available to them for free from partners who not only don't want their equity, they don't even want to be paid back.
I believe investors should invest for the long run, so I don't buy and sell. I usually maintain the classic index of global equities, diversified U.S. and global and emerging markets, and when the risk is larger, I diminish the amount in global equities and put more into liquid assets - but very irregularly.
Perhaps storytellers don't need to care as much about the future as executives and investors do. After all, isn't it possible that technology will enable storytellers to connect directly to their audience without the need for anyone to share the programming decisions or the profit in between? Don't bet on it.
The IIP had to be folded up by the Harper Conservatives after it became clear - and as it took the 'South China Morning Post's Ian Young to reveal - that Canada's ragged refugee-class immigrants had contributed more to Revenue Canada than the IIP's big-spender immigrant investors did over the life of the program.
If you're going to lead a space frontier, it has to be government; it'll never be private enterprise. Because the space frontier is dangerous, and it's expensive, and it has unquantified risks. And under those conditions, you cannot establish a capital-market evaluation of that enterprise. You can't get investors.
Women are a dynamic economic force. We represent the largest consumer market in the world and are drivers of GDP. More and more companies recognize that when they support women as customers, employees, leaders, future investors and partners, they are adopting sound business strategies and advancing social progress.
Today's consumers are eager to become loyal fans of companies that respect purposeful capitalism. They are not opposed to companies making a profit; indeed, they may even be investors in these companies - but at the core, they want more empathic, enlightened corporations that seek a balance between profit and purpose.
No one suggested Lehman deserved to be saved. But the argument has been made that the crisis might have been less severe if it had been saved, because Lehman's failure created remarkable uncertainty in the market as investors became confused about the role of the government and whether it was picking winners and losers.
The thing that's confusing for investors is that founders don't know how to be CEO. I didn't know how to do the job when I was a CEO. Founder CEOs don't know how to be CEOs, but it doesn't mean they can't learn. The question is... can the founder learn that job and can they tolerate all mistakes they will make doing it?
Our concerns about what we saw in Australia: an economy clearly tied to China has hitched its wagon to the tail of the tiger. In terms of the general complacency, what we heard over and over from investors and clients and potential clients is, 'yes, yes, there are some excesses, but the government will figure out a way.'
On the New York Stock Exchange, all buy and sell orders are routed through a single 'specialist,' guaranteeing that most small trades can be matched directly. But most larger trades are delivered to the specialist on the floor of the exchange by human brokers, a system that big investors view as increasingly inefficient.
The 1969 experience has been a rude awakening for many hedge-fund investors and has left some of them with strong reservations about the whole concept. For the first time in their relatively short history, the funds are not growing: in fact, some have suffered large withdrawals of capital, and a few have actually folded.
Greece's European neighbors were able step in and bolster the weak foundation on which Greece's free-spending budget was based. It would be difficult for any country, or intergovernmental organization, to rescue an economy the size of the U.S. if investors were ever to lose faith in our bonds because of our enormous debt.
State funds, private equity, venture capital, and institutional lending all have their role in the lifecycle of a high tech startup, but angel capital is crucial for first-time entrepreneurs. Angel investors provide more than just cash; they bring years of expertise as both founders of businesses and as seasoned investors.
One of the great things about Silicon Valley is, irrespective of how competitive you might be with another company or how closely you might be working with that company, there's a great sort of give and take, and camaraderie from - between - some of the executives in the valley and some of the other investors in the valley.
We make too much out of past performance, and it's very misleading to investors. It causes them to move money around. They buy a fund that's hot and then it turns cold as all hot funds eventually do. And then they get out. Well, buying at the high and selling at the low isn't going to leave you a satisfied shareholder, right?
I don't think it ever occurred to me that I wouldn't be an entrepreneur. My dad became a real estate developer, and that work is usually project-based. You attract investors for a project with a certain life cycle, and then you move on to the next thing. It's almost like being a serial entrepreneur, so I had that as an example.
When running a Ponzi scheme, how does one avoid enormous, unexpected withdrawals - runs on the bank, so to speak - that would pull back the curtain and reveal a little man blowing smoke? One way would be to attract a core of investors who could be counted on to never withdraw more than a small percentage of principal each year.
As a bull market turns into a bear market, the new pros turn into optimists, hoping and praying the bear market will become a bull and save them. But as the market remains bearish, the optimists become pessimists, quit the profession, and return to their day jobs. This is when the real professional investors re-enter the market.
As alleged, David Hu directed a multimillion-dollar, years-long scheme to defraud investors. Putting profit ahead of his fiduciary duties, Hu allegedly mismarked millions of dollars of loan assets to cover up millions in losses. Hu also created fake entities and loans, and falsified paperwork to deceive auditors and avoid detection.
It's really hard to break through the clutter and get the attention of the top investors, as they typically only look at deals that come in from a warm, credible referral. There's absolutely nothing more credible than getting an endorsement from a well-known subject matter expert who has already put their own money into your company.
Investors do not like losing money. They do not like companies that fail. They do not like entrepreneurs that fail. There is not a culture of celebrating failure in Silicon Valley or anyplace else. That is a myth. Recognize this, and if you start another business, get it to a successful point before approaching outside investors again.
In 2007, there weren't any other accelerators, at least that I was aware of. We were almost the prototypical Y Combinator founders: We were highly technical but had never done a startup before. We also didn't know anyone in the Valley - investors, other entrepreneurs, potential hires. YC seemed like a great way to bootstrap that network.
Of all the thankless jobs that economists set for themselves when it comes to educating people about economics, the notion that society is better off if some industries are allowed to wither, their workers lose their jobs, and investors lose their capital - all in the name of the greater glory of globalization - surely ranks near the top.
We have legislated to protect the public from tax rises and guarantee incomes for pensioners, so enshrining in law more protections for consumers, commuters and investors is possible. Enshrining these rights into law would mean that any future government which wanted to reverse this would have to go through the primary legislative process.