What does it take to become a successful entrepreneur?

The most successful start-up I ever worked for was founded by a guy who was brought up in a village in the Indian Himalayas. He is now the richest Indian immigrant in the USA, with a fortune valued at $20 Billion.

Jay founded the Cyber Security Software company Zscaler (Full Disclosure: I have shares in it), for which I worked in Marketing in 2015 & 2016. He founded Zscaler in 2008 and it is now valued at $50 Billion on the NASDAQ. Zscaler had its IPO in 2018.

His house didn’t even have running water. His family was clearly not wealthy. Read about Zscaler, founded by Jay Chaudhry, here.

Jay Chaudry, CEO of Zscaler, grew up poor, in a Himalayan village

(Himachal Pradesh).

The second most successful startup I worked for was also founded by Indian immigrants to the USA. You can read about Visual IQ here. Nielsen bought Visual IQ (I don't have shares) for two billion dollars the year after I left the company.

Most startup founders I’ve worked for, have a genius of varying degrees, and an aspect of their personality that psychologists would define as ‘Hypomania’.

Harvard Medical School defines Hypomania as 'a mood state or energy level that is elevated above average, but not so extreme as to cause impairment'. The incidence of hypomanic personality is much higher than the average in immigrants and entrepreneurs (and those living in the USA, a country made up of immigrants).

Many people buy into the myth that the average successful startup founder is young - probably a guy in their mid-twenties. In fact, the average age of a successful startup founder is actually forty-five years old.  Right now, more black women are founding businesses than ever before.

I learned a great deal working for another founder in the US, again called Jay, who had been a child prodigy. At 16, he completed a triple major degree at Carnegie Mellon in Computer Sciences, Russian, and Mathematics. 

He went on to become the USA's youngest MBA at age eighteen and youngest management consultant at Bain & Co., again at age 18. 

Jay once told me that Carnegie Mellon told him that he was too young to pursue an MBA at their University at sixteen. 

He then managed to get an offer for a scholarship to take a PhD in Finance at Wharton. He threatened Carnegie Mellon that he would pursue his studies at The University of Pennsylvania if he was not accepted into their MBA program. 

That's how he got into Carnegie Mellon's MBA program at such a young age. 

I became Jay's Head of Marketing and right-hand man. It was fun, but it was also torture. Jay was 'always-on', which was exhausting for an average 'regular joe' like me.

“Following your dreams is dangerous,” a 31-year-old woman who runs in social entrepreneurship circles in New York, and asked not to be named, told Quartz. “This whole bulk of the population is being seduced into thinking that they can just go out and pursue their dream anytime, but it’s not true.” 

The truth is that founding a company is typically not a purely rational act. A Founder has to have outsized confidence and vision in themselves to put his or her plan into place. 

This is not necessarily the act of a normal person. By that logic, not everyone can be an entrepreneur. The fact that I have worked for so many startups means I have at least a little of the entrepreneur's mindset myself. 

These are the characteristics I've seen in most entrepreneurs I've worked for. You might want to call it genetics, personality, or something else entirely:

1. He (or She) is flooded with ideas.
2. He is driven, restless, and unable to keep still.
3. He channels his energy into the achievement of wildly grand ambitions.
4. He often works on little sleep.
5. He feels brilliant, unique, chosen, and perhaps even destined to change the world.
6. He becomes easily irritated by minor obstacles.
7. He is a risk-taker.

Does this sound like an entrepreneur or founder, as you know? 

Go to my website.

Please check out Feedspot, a great blog founded by Anuj Agarwal. I'm excited to say that Feedspot has chosen my blog to be on its list of the top 200 tech blogs. I'm honored—thank you! Here's their list. 

What's the most important leadership skill?

What skills does a leader need? The top leadership skill listed on LinkedIn is persuasiveness, which is closely aligned with Charisma. See John F Kennedy, below, possibly the twentieth century's most charismatic and glamorous leaders, whose vision led to the first man on the moon fifty years ago.

             Below: 50 years since the first moonshot - Inspired by the leadership of President John F Kennedy

Without persuasiveness, how will you get people to follow you? 

The second is Formidability. My friend John Hynes, a formidable leader, built a $25 billion city in South Korea and redeveloped Boston's seaport for $4 Billion. You can learn more about his formidability if you click on his image.

Below: John Hynes, CEO of Boston Global Investors

One leadership skill that will be absolutely paramount in the next ten years will be adaptability. It won't be the strongest or the toughest that will survive and thrive in a world that's changing faster and more unpredictably than ever.

It will be the most flexible leader, able to change rapidly when needed, sometimes overturning his entire strategy overnight when the circumstances dictate it.

                                  Is Leadership born or made?

Trait theory suggests that it is born. Leaders tend to be extraverted, conscientious, and smart, all of which have a genetic component. Intelligence is between 50-80% inherited, for example.

But there's a counter-argument that 50% of the population believed that you can develop leadership and that it's a learned skill. After all, Leadership is more about EQ than IQ, and Emotional Intelligence can be learned.

The 34th President of the United States, Dwight.D.Eisenhower once said, "The supreme quality of leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office."

Why Culture eats strategy for breakfast

That phrase was first uttered by Mark Fields, CEO of Ford Motors and then popularised by the management guru Peter Drucker. 

This statement must connect with people since I've heard it many times and not just in Organisational behaviour classes in my MBA program.

Culture is crucial for several reasons. Your organization needs an appealing culture to attract talent to it. Top recruiters no longer talk about 'culture fit' -  They talk about 'culture add'.

 - You want to adapt your culture to accommodate all kinds of personalities and backgrounds. That means being as flexible as possible.

Delivering High Performing teams through Strategic Leadership

HR Webinar with Andrew Cocks, Head of employee branding at HSBC, and Dr Josef Scheurlein, Leadership Consultant

Did you know that 'diverse' doesn't just mean from different ethnic groups, females or from different cultures from the main? It also applies to cognitively diverse?

 - According to extensive research, the most successful teams have the broadest range of thinking styles to develop innovative and effective solutions.

And neurodiversity is one of the hottest new topics - with conditions like ADHD and even Aspergers and Autism no longer being seen as disabilities but often as 'superpowers'.

Your company must do its best to make its culture appealing since it wants the best skills to further the business.

In the UK, we have skill shortages in Software Programming, Digital Marketing, Engineering, all analytics roles, particularly those in data science, and most digital roles.

- on LinkedIn, 'Data Scientist' has gone from zero searches to the no.1 top search in the last ten years. 

In the UK, this 'skills gap' is costing our Economy £6.3 Billion per year. When hiring, companies are forced to look at anything that will give them an edge over their competitors. 

There is an even more pronounced skills gap in the USA. I have seen figures for this 'gap' varying from one Trillion to three Trillion US Dollars over the next ten years.

Google and Facebook are well known for their beautiful offices and perks. Salary is another way to attract talent. 

However, culture is the most important. The top employees want to work in an environment that fits them best. And it shouldn't be a 'cookie-cutter approach'.

Over fifty per cent of employees say they would not take a job at a company that did not share their values. 

With Millennials and Generation Z, this percentage is even higher, Seventy per cent or more. Millennials make up one-third of the workforce and will soon be in the majority. 

So, culture is the future. And it's surprisingly easy and cost-effective to improve your culture. How?

- Simply by listening to your employees! 

- & remember this part - always act on what they tell you!

Right now, one of the most critical cultural issues is how organizations will manage 'the new normal' after the Pandemic. 

- What do you think will happen? 

• Will it go back to 'business as usual'? 

• Is working remotely now the 'new normal' and being in the office 'the exception'?

• Or will we find a middle way - a combination of working from home with some days in the office?

One day, companies will see Culture as they do Brand today: Essential rather than desired. 

I predict that company Culture will soon be measured on its balance sheet just as a Brand started to be fifteen or twenty years ago. 

Go to my website.

Arup Breakfast events - Six rules of Event Management

Working smarter, not harder

They told me they'd tried it before, and it'd been a flop. However, I was confident my first event for Arup's new email management software tool would be a success.

You don't have to have much money, but you must always aim to work smart. Many companies make the fatal error of starting marketing too late, and then it's a mad rush to get everything done in time.

Running an event without the correct 'runway' of time for marketing is stressful, arduous work. People often don't think very well in that situation.

Unless you are one of the 2% of the population who can genuinely multi-task, typically, you will lose 15 IQ points when you try to accomplish this; it is not a 'smart' way to run an event!

I held our first event in Arup's headquarters in London on March 14th. 28 Hands has its second breakfast event on Wednesday, 8th May. 

I aimed for 16 at the first event and made 22. I already have 50 attendees registered for the second event, which is still one month away. 

Thursday, March 14, was a big day for Mail Manager. Not only did we have our first breakfast event, but we were also running the Viewpoint Mail Manager webinar: Viewpoint for Projects and Mail Manager integration.

That month, my other marketing manager, Joanne Waddell, and I increased our email campaign numbers from an average of 2000 to 123,000! Joanne is one of the best marketers I've worked with, so we had fun building that success together!

I also managed to generate some low-cost PPC and social media leads.

Senior Client Manager, Mario Christophides, started the morning with hard, but fair, statements:

Other industries are quicker to adapt than construction.

UK productivity issue, which we address by working longer hours

We can achieve better productivity by collaborating more closely.

Lucy Prior then provided an overview of how Mail Manager helps Arup capture 80% of their project correspondence. 

She explained that Arup developed Mail Manager in response to email becoming a significant problem for their business, particularly commercially sensitive information being locked in inboxes.

Project Managers and Engineers were not sharing data across their teams, and in frustration, Arup developed Mail Manager for their own employees.

Lucy Prior,  Mail Manager's Top Salesperson, presenting a live software demo.

   

         
Paul Hill is an information manager at Arup's program project management office.

Paul leads Information Management on large projects using a variety of software, including Common Data Environments such as ProjectWise, which Mail Manager integrates.

              Paul Hill, Information Manager at Arup, with Lucy Prior, Mail Manager's Senior Salesperson.

                     

Paul said that at Arup, thanks to Mail Manager, email is no longer a problem; we have solved it.

He demonstrated by showing us the 'Social network' of projects he was working on, and how one project, in particular, he’d been working on since 2011.

Paul showed us that hundreds of people had sent over 35,000 emails during this project. Using the Mail Manager search, he can access anything across the project in a matter of seconds. 

Six rules for setting up, running and following up on your first event:

Planning, Planning, Planning

1. PRE-EVENT EMAIL MARKETING

 I set up an email automation campaign for one month or more before the event. My automation will include a series of 'if/not' decision trees; If my prospect opens and clicks on the first ever email I send them one which is more personalised and has more detail in it.

If not, I send them an email that will try to capture their interest with a catchy subject line and a variety of topics.  If my prospect hits on the event landing page but does not sign up, I will send them a reminder email a few days later, again, perhaps with some video of a previous keynote and so on.

I create a top Landing page to maximise the number of attendees. 

2. SOCIAL MEDIA

Create 'buzz' around the event. Fortunately, I have a lot of friends in Branding who know a lot about this. One used to work for HSBC, another ran EMEA Brand Management for Hyatt Hotels,  and yet another friend of mine was Chief Creative Officer at Coca Cola. It helps to talk with 'ideas' people to develop events and marketing that will 'hit them between the eyes'.                                                                                                                                                                                      

3. LISTEN TO YOUR PROSPECTS

You can use social media to understand your audience better.  Posting titbits on Linked In or Twitter will get you many reactions. Monitor these religiously to get a feel for what your prospects want to see and hear, not only at the event but before and after it. I also use surveys at the event and online tools like Survey Monkey. However, keep these short and sweet. No one wants to spend twenty minutes filling out hundreds of questions. Limit it to five, with the option for them to leave comments. 

4. KEEP NOTES ON WHAT IS WORKING AND NOT WORKING

At our last event, one of our prospects asked if we had sent him an Outlook calendar invite for the date. I had not, but I checked into our new CRM system and saw that I could send invites en masse. I will certainly be doing this for the next event. Your prospects and customers know what they want better than you. Remember that.

5. HAVE SOME BIG NAMES

I'm a startup to mid-size kind of guy. I tend to do well in those nimble, fast-growing companies. But we all like to hear about the big names, whether it's celebrities, billionaires, supermodels or large organisations. Some names I've had at events I've run, have been anyone from Verizon Wireless to Black rock, from Mckinsey to TJ Maxx.

6. SHOW THEM THE LOVE

I always want to show my prospects that I care. I want great food, inspiring talks, fantastic giveaways and attractive hosts.

My attendees have taken valuable time out of their busy schedules to see us. I want to do the absolute best to make that an outstanding and hopefully memorable and useful, experience for them.

To continue your Marketing journey and understand how to generate leads and bring them through the marketing flywheel to close, read more of my blog, and my website.

Breakfast event link

Marketing Strategy with the Hyatt Hotels branding lead

Henny Frazer, Ex-Director of Brands EMEA & APAC, Hyatt Hotels (second from left).

One of my pleasures is meeting up with an old friend after a long absence. For the last five years, Henny has been living in Zurich, Switzerland. I lived in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, for the previous ten years. It was great to meet Henny after all this time.

 The Ivy, King’s Road, during the Chelsea Flower Show

We met up at The Ivy Chelsea Garden, on King’s Road, which was appropriate for several reasons;

First, it used to be a Dive bar called Henry J Beans that we hung out at when we were younger. The restaurant has ‘grown up’ over the years.

Secondly, it’s a unique restaurant, and Henny is an expert on them. Hospitality is her business; Specifically, luxury travel and hotels.

Henny Frazer

                     

My experience in branding comes mainly from working with agencies and corporate communications teams. My sector is fast-growing tech companies. Henny has worked with well-established luxury brands.

I’m fascinated by branding. And who could deny Henny’s undeniable talent for branding and strategy?

We both had travelled around India with a friend for several months in our 20s, and we talked about that first. I was touched by the experience: 

This included attending the famous 'full moon' parties in Manali & Goa; Camel trekking in the Thar desert for a week (I raced my camel driver); Getting lost for two days in the Himalayas; Along with various other exploits too numerous or too inculpating to mention (luckily we took no video back then).

The internet is a double-edged sword; in some ways, it’s helped strengthen and give new dimensions to brands. In other ways, it has commoditized a host of products. 

Price comparison sites have hammered the hotel business; it’s also eating into margins in the airline industry. A race to the bottom has ensued in the entire hospitality sector.

The hotel business has also been threatened by disruptive technologies like Air BnB. More recently, Covid-19 has brought the industry to its knees.

Henny talked about this and her work to make brands stand out and capture strong positive emotions and loyalty, which is falling among customers generally.

Andaz Hotel, Delhi

I was eager to find out more and asked Henny for examples. Henny told me a great story about her marketing initiative for The Andaz Delhi. 

Many hotels are having the same conversation: We are glamorous, cater to your every need, we’re beautiful & luxurious, and so on...

Connecting with the young and fashionable in Delhi

Henny had a different idea to connect the hotel with the history and culture of Delhi, including the new young hip culture growing in the city. The main message for the Andaz brand is:

‘Arrive a Visitor, Depart a Local’

Henny and her team produced a book describing the 401 reasons to fall in love with Delhi.

Why 401 Reasons? It’s simple - Andaz Delhi has 401 guestrooms. Every room has its own reason, which is defined in the book.

Besides, as you enter each guestroom or suite, you will find a unique piece of art illustrating each reason.

The book covers a range of subjects, from art and architecture to local delicacies, nature, and shops. They produced the album with reasons like:

Reason No. 161 - Lassi                     

‘Lassi is the much-loved yoghurt drink enjoyed all over  India. The sweet-tart drink is consumed in vast quantities in Delhi and may be served in fine hand-etched silver and brass cups, terracotta tumblers, and even plastic cups.’

Then the book would be left on this page for guests staying in room 161. Here’s a link to the booklet.

Reason No. 258 - Delhi Blue Pottery

Henny changed the conversation and developed a deeper, more powerful bond with Hyatt customers.

We covered a wide range of branding & strategy subjects at lunch. But I think my favorites were: 

Grand Hyatt’s powerful ‘Living Grand’ message.

The Hyatt Centric brand offers a springboard to discover a city. I had enviously admired footage of Henny at a Flow Rida concert at Hyatt Centric Chicago Magnificent Mile.  

Or the Hotel Du Louvre - The hotel team worked on rebranding this hotel as it has become part of the Unbound Collection by Hyatt. This hotel is all about slowing down and really becoming inspired by Paris.

If I had to pick a favorite Hyatt Hotel, I'd probably go for the Martinez in Cannes, which I used to stay at with my dad. 

Henny & I at Beaufort House, King’s Road, in Chelsea

my website.

Data in a Day

Business lessons from Boston's biggest real-estate Mogul

One of the high-points of the ten years I lived in the US, was going to John Hynes the third's 50th birthday. It was in Chatham, a beautiful New England beach resort, in the summer. So it was a lovely sunny 28 degrees.

John is an institution in Boston. His father was a famous newscaster and his grandfather, John B Hynes, was a notable mayor of Boston. There are lots of buildings named after him, such as the Hynes Convention Centre, pictured above.

I have listened to John talk many times about business. We were pretty close for a long time whilst I was living in Boston (2005-2015). John and his beautiful wife, Tracey, even came to our wedding - their presence honoured me since at the time I was still a student in the middle of my MBA degree.

The City that Jack built - New Songdo City, South Korea 

One building project he pioneered and completed as CEO of the Gale Corporation was the construction of New Songdo City, billed as ''the Hong Kong of the 21st century," for a cost of $25 Billion.

I was entirely in awe of the fact that here's this family man, with two children, who made this brutal 15 hour trip to South Korea once a month for several years.

The second big project he worked on was the $3.5 Billion Seaport redevelopment in Boston. He talked about how a $200 Million investment, paid off exceptionally well in the end. Since the pandemic, Boston's Seaport has become the main centre of the city, which has moved from Boston Common.

However, he was always honest about a developer's fears. He also talked about the importance of developing relationships, for example, with Morgan Stanley, to secure his last big loan for the Seaport development.

Having important business relationships is crucial. In addition to my  LinkedIn contacts, I have many close friends in diverse fields of business.

- From finance to technology, from Business to the Law

- Who I go to for advice, help and sometimes for work. You never know how someone you talk to today may one day be useful in your business, and you in theirs.

John Hynes's four rules to live by:

• Be Impeccably Honest With Your Word.
• Don't Take Things Personally.
• Don't Make Assumptions.
• Do Your Best.

Marketing - Learning to skate before you play Ice Hockey

 My University, Northeastern, below, wins 'the Beanpot.'  

2018, 'The Beanpot' is a favorite tradition in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, where I lived for ten years and went to college. It's an Ice Hockey Tournament between Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern University (my college) and Harvard.

Jack, my ten-year-old son, is learning to play Ice Hockey. Of course, first He's had to learn how to skate. No point teaching him how to use his hockey stick to hit a puck into the goal, when he can barely stay on his feet on the ice.

So every week we go down to the Ice rink in Bayswater, London, and he gets to skate for two or three hours. Last week, we bought him some Ice Hockey skates and had them sharpened.

- Initially, he was actually a lot more unsteady on his feet, as he adjusted to the new Ice Skates.

I see this effect when we initially bring digital transformation to Marketing or start to use more sophisticated CRM.

However, within a few hours, Jack was actually skating faster. I timed him, and he was about a quarter more quickly around the rink with the new skates.

8am on a Sunday morning he starts his Ice Hockey classes - Two hours each week. That'll be the big test. Can he stay on his feet when he's trying to score a goal and he has competitors snapping at him on all sides?

My son, Jack, at his first Hockey class

Our coach, wearing the Boston College shirt, is from Boston, where Jack was born.

A lot of companies can't skate at all, but they want to be Wayne Gretzky (a famous Ice Hockey player, who won a lot of championships) within, let's say, six months.

- and often, when they're not skating like a superstar after six months, they change their trainer

As a Marketing leader, you could tell your leadership team that We will achieve some notable victories, but 'first, we need to learn to skate around the rink without falling on our behinds'.

Of course, that doesn't sound very good. Some Marketers skate around the issue and say 'Sure, we can do that. But we do need to do x, y, z first' and just hope that this expectation will go away.

But the truth is that digital marketing is hard. It takes a lot of time, testing, experimentation. Yes, it takes money too! It's also not something that works with constant micromanaging.

It doesn't work overnight.

You see gradual, incremental improvement over time, with a lot of work.

You will also see better and faster improvements when the entire company is entirely behind the marketing efforts. 

-but frequently that does not happen.

I know it's a pain in the ass to hear this - 

- The adage is not 'Seize the day.'
- It's 'Rome wasn't built in a day.'

Marketing automation and analytics are the same. So why do a lot of startup CEO's expect this sudden, dramatic change in one month?

Impatience? Frustration? Lack of thought? These are all possibilities for their desperation. But I believe their problems stem mainly from not understanding how Digital Marketing works.

The standard rules of business often simply don't apply to startups.  Just like the world of Ice Hockey, the world of startups is crazy and chaotic. Sometimes fights break out in the middle of the action. Sometimes the action just carries on regardless. It's actually amazing how similar the two worlds are!

Marketers in the start-up industry need to start being more honest and say 'sure we can achieve some fantastic results. But it'll take a lot of time, commitment, effort and yes, some money too. 

In addition to the many challenges that startups face, Marketing leaders face additional ones. The industry is in one of it's toughest phases right now

- 80% of CEOs are unhappy with their Marketing heads. That percentage is even higher in startups. 

Even in incredibly successful startups I've worked at, like $18 Billion market-cap Nasdaq listed Zscaler, we went through three CMO's in just two years! Two other startups I worked at, change their entire marketing team roughly every six months.

'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat' (Winston Churchill) is a robust but effective message.

- But it's also a sobering message to hear. I have a lot of empathy with you as a Startup founder and CEO. I really want to tell you what want to hear. But I think it's better for both of us in the long run, to be honest with you.

- Then we can achieve some incredible results, working together!

For further reading on this topic, why not check out this excellent article 'The Trouble with CMO's' in Harvard Business Review.

The 'Five Eyes' Secret Service Conference in Australia

                   

The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an anglophone intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in Secret Service intelligence. 

The origins of the FVEY can be traced back to the post–World War II period. At this time, the Allies issued the Atlantic Charter to lay out their goals for a post-war world. During the Cold War, the FVEY initially developed the ECHELON surveillance system to monitor the communications of the former Soviet Union. Now, it is used to monitor billions of private communications worldwide. 

This is one of the systems Edward Snowden exposed in 2013, which is why he now lives in Russia (the US Justice Department wants him). Cybersecurity is one of the main concerns of all these Secret Service agencies. They are working on numerous issues related to national security, including cyber threats, internet security, cyber attacks, malware protection, encrypting and decrypting data, and creating secure government firewalls. 

The primary purpose of this conference was to agree on a public statement outlining the Five Eyes' policy on encryption. The issue has been in and out of the news ever since Edward Snowden released thousands of documents outlining the NSA's monitoring of the public's communications across all networks. 

Four areas they talked about that were covered extensively at Infosec this year were Ransomware attacks on Internet of Things (IoT) devices, AI-powered chatbots manipulating information, Russia & other malign dictatorships hacking democratic election processes to manipulate them, and Cyberwarfare damaging global trade. 

The conference went well. All the other countries in the Secret Service 'Group of five' - Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, were exquisitely entertained at the best Hyatt Hotel in Canberra. But sadly, the miserly English had to languish in an unknown Hotel a long way from the event (someone quipped 'in the outback'). 

We were undoubtedly the other four nation's poor cousin this month. I understand we in the UK all live in the age of austerity, but some might say this is excessive. We're the country that invented James Bond for goodness sake........... We have always led the world in Secret Service operations.

 

One of the British contingents made an inappropriate joke about Snowden to the CIA. I suppose some of us in Europe are unaware of how poorly Edward Snowden is viewed in the US Secret Service and military circles. So why would you make such a joke at a packed assembly with a leading US Secret Service delivering a vital talk? 

I suppose some of us Brits are not convinced he was a traitor. Some believe that the information he released was in the public interest. Still, it must be pretty awkward for a 'freedom fighter' like Andrew Snowden to be living in the full-on brutal dictatorship that Russia has morphed into.

The top topic was Cyber Security, which is fast becoming the obsession of all Secret Service organizations. Companies like Apple and WhatsApp still protect their data against Western agencies. However, in Russia, China, and other dictatorships, all data (on Google, Whatsapp, Facebook, Apple, etc..) is easily accessible by their governments. So much for Silicon's Valleys 'values'. They only work when there's no real threat to their profits. 

Another topic on the agenda was the proposed inquiry into abuses committed by British undercover officers, going back to the early 1970s. These officers were dealing with some of the most dangerous criminal gangs in the UK and were consequently promised complete anonymity for their lifetime. 

The British Government is now going back on that promise. Like many businesses, these gangs that the agents were operating in go on in perpetuity, and they have long memories. These undercover officers were in extreme danger then, and many of them are still in danger now and will be for the rest of their lives. This inquiry will almost certainly uncover nothing useful after forty years or more, yet it will potentially unleash several hornets' nests. Is it worth it?

Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, chopped up, and burned (under the guise of a 'barbecue') in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, in November 2018. I coincidentally also went to a friend's wedding in Istanbul, Turkey, during this time. If the Saudis had asked around, they would have realised that all embassies are bugged, so they are not the best location for a murder. 

But like the Russians and North Koreans, Saudis live in somewhat of a bubble. They only allowed women to drive a few years ago! Homosexuality and even adultery (for the women at least) are punishable by death. How very 'middle ages' of Saudi Arabia!

                              


Secret Service monitoring of communications is undoubtedly a subject that provokes much debate.

Without a doubt, a large proportion of effective computer hacking campaigns are state-sponsored, for example:

• North Korea creating the Wannacry virus that did immense damage to the NHS in the UK.
• Russia hacking into the US Presidential elections and potentially changing its result (and now China as well).
• The Chinese government's hackers breaking into private business websites, and stealing intellectual property to help boost its many state-run enterprises.

How the Financial Crash of 2008 could repeat itself

Professor Adam Tooze talked to a packed audience at the LSE: 'Each time a crisis is solved, it returns with a vengeance. If you look at crashes starting with  Long-Term Capital Management in '98, the .com crash of 2000, the financial account frauds of 2001

- or the mortgage-backed securities-driven financial meltdown of 2008, they are all increasing in amplitude.'

He continued to say that the big problem is that the Fed, the government, Central Banks, and so on have to move heaven and earth each time to fix the problem.

Then within a few years, we're all acting like nothing awful happened. You have the problem of Moral hazard endemic in this industry. 

2008 - 'Too big to fail' - 2018 now they're even bigger

Everyone remembers the phrase 'too big to fail,' right? Ironically, a result of the government fixing the last crisis is that there are even fewer banks, which are even bigger than before.

But in 2008, something REALLY BAD happened, and we were fortunate to get out of it. It cost a fortune - $13,000,000,000,000 (thirteen trillion dollars) of taxpayer's money, and we're still suffering the consequences.

- Brexit.
- The Election of Donald Trump as US President.
- The debt crisis in Portugal, Greece, Spain, Ireland, Italy & Iceland.
- The rise of 'Popularism' and the far right in Europe. 
- Productivity growth stagnation (particularly in the UK).

They are all, arguably, consequences of the 2008 Financial Crash.

Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke's quote that 2008 was 'worse than the Great Depression' but for the US Government's intervention.

Banks on the brink of Bankruptcy in 2008

On the surface, it looks like it's all ok right now.......

The US Federal Reserve spending

But check this chart below, out - Our Economies had to go into a war-time footing, in 2008, last seen during World War 2. And we are not back to normal now.

The Housing Market

What about this, the housing market. See that big loopy curve at the end of the chart that looks entirely different from the rest? That's right now. 

This chart shows when the government deficit took off - they needed to spend a fortune to prop up the failing banks and financial institutions.

Government Debt and the UK's 'Austerity' policy

Check out when government debt started to take off, in this chart below: 2008, just when the Crash in the Financial Sector happened.

What would you think if restaurant review sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp were paid for by the restaurants?

That's precisely what happened at all the rating agencies during the crash. And it's still happening today. The rating agencies are paid by the companies they rate. 

During a Congressional hearing into the 2008 financial crash, an email was discovered from a rating expert.

He had written: 'Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters.' 

I had a personal experience of something similar when living in Boston, USA. I regularly met up with a major bank's head of the Mortgage-backed Securities Sales desk.

He used to laugh at his analyst projections, ignoring the last 'black swan' property crash.

Companies like Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs were shorting (Betting against) Mortgage-backed securities while another part of the company was selling them. 

I also knew a CEO at the helm when this financial meltdown happened. He was distraught for a time. He was scared he would be prosecuted for fraud and sent to jail.

However, He walked away with $30 Million in severance. US Taxpayers had to bail out his company for $189 Billion.

The biggest bailout in History - will the next one be bigger?

It became evident during the lecture how little could be done during the crash without the USA. The Federal Reserve guaranteed loans not only for US Banks but for banks across the globe. 

It's irrelevant what those in the European Union say; we would have all been sunk without the US's action. Professor Tooze said, 'The European Central Bank became the 13th Federal Reserve district.'

I still laugh when Politicians in the UK say that the UK Chancellor (equivalent to the Secretary of the Treasury) got us into the sub-prime disaster. Firstly, it was the banks that did that. Secondly, it started in the USA and was a global phenomenon.

Europe is still suffering from the effects of the subprime mortgage collapse. Spain, the size of Texas, has youth unemployment at 50%. Greece is in a similar position. 

Professor Tooze told us we are on a path of ever-greater fluctuation in Economic Downturns.

In 2015-2016, we narrowly dodged a recession spreading from Russia, Brazil, and South Africa, the collapse of commodity prices (notably, Oil), and the Chinese Yuan.

Where will the next crash start? - China? or the Banks again?

Professor Adam Tooze was particularly gripping when he revealed the comparative chart of the banks' vulnerability to a similar future shock. 

He pointed to Deutsche Bank as by far the most exposed, just adding, to much laughter, that no one could be surprised because Deutsche Bank was universally regarded as a “basket case”. 

No 2 did cause some consternation in the room - HSBC. 

Five of the biggest banks in the world are now Chinese. 

Fall-out from Silicon Valley Bank Collapse & Bailout 

(added 19/3/23)

SVB had grown extraordinarily fast, with total assets almost doubling from $116 billion at the end of 2021 to $216 billion at the end of 2022, making it the 16th largest bank in the US and the second largest bank failure in US history. 

According to LSE Economists Jón Danielsson &  Robert Macrae SVB's collapse shows us that the financial system is much more fragile than the public had been led to believe.