Fat Tailed Thoughts

Uncovering innovation before it goes mainstream. Niche markets, outlaw finance, frontiers of capital, and more.

SWIFT, Sanctions, & The Makings of Modern Warfare

Ukraine is under attack. The world is responding with financial warfare. It's a new domain in multi-domain operations. Air. Land. Maritime. Space. Cyber. Finance. We explore how financial warfare happens: how SWIFT works and why Russia's been kicked off, how the US can enforce sanctions all over the globe, and what freezing Russia's central bank reserves means for Russia's economy. We conclude with a look at what each of us can do to support Ukraine. They're small acts, but they make a very real difference.

The Future of Markets for Startup Equity

The theme of this episode is MORE. More funding, more startups, more investors, more everything. Funding for startups has grown 10x in 10 years, an astonishing 26% annual growth rate. We analyze the three big trends - more VC money, more new types of investors, and more investor-friendly regulations - before we predict the startups that will emerge to serve this market in the years and decades to come.

Get Cash Without Selling Startup Equity

Selling your startup equity used to be the only option for startup employees to get cash prior to IPO. But as the number of unicorns has ballooned and startups stay private for longer, a new option has emerged. Startup employees can finance their options. No money is owed until the startup goes public or is acquired. We discuss the tax treatment of options, the tradeoffs of financing, selling, or waiting, and the growing number of lenders employees can engage.

How to Sell Your Startup Equity

The average time for a startup to go public has increased from 7 to 12 years in the past two decades. More and more early employees are left equity rich and cash poor. An ecosystem has emerged to help. It's not all smooth sailing. The challenges of an illiquid startup equity market, complex regulations, and burdensome taxes are real. How to navigate is critical for any potential seller to understand.

Long & Short of Stock Market Performance

The US stock market had its worst January since The Great Financial Crisis. But investment returns don't make a lot of sense without more information around "normal" returns and the period over which performance is measured. In this episode, we look at 100 years of stock market performance - how changing the dates over which performance is measured makes huge differences in the measured outcomes, why average returns are misleading, and how poor short-term performance can create incentive misalignment between money managers and their clients.

Matchmakers vs eHarmony

Market makers and order books are at the beating heart of markets. They're how we ensure there's a buyer for every seller and a seller for every buyer. They're how modern financial exchanges work. It's a model that works well in big markets. Automated Market Makers change the game. They can operate - profitably - in small markets. It's a powerful new invention that's beginning to transform markets as we know them.

What If Debt Collectors Helped Rather Than Abused

Startups are proving that treating people well can be good business. They're 40%+ more effective at collections that the legacy dial-for-dollars. Not only is it more revenue, it's bigger profits and happier consumers. We explore the state of consumer delinquent debt, the misaligned incentives in debt collections, and the startups that are helping millions of consumers. Shoutouts to startups InDebted, Prodigal, receeve, and TrueAccord!

Sex Sells But You Can't Finance It

The adult industry is bigger than Hollywood yet it largely lacks access to basic financial services. Cutoff from banking, payments, and venture capital, it is remarkable the industry exists at all. We explore why the adult industry hasn't had access to financial services and the barriers still left to overcome today. We find that the industry is changing - the barriers are falling and funding is coming.

Slow Revolutions in Financial Services

Decades long technology revolutions can be multibillion dollar opportunities for those paying attention. Yesterday's hype can take years to become mainstream. Even longer if you're a highly regulated financial services company. We explore why only 8% of banking tasks have been moved to the cloud and how even these first steps have unlocked slow revolutions in equity markets and money movement. New capabilities are just coming online today that have been years in the making. They're massive opportunities for those paying attention.

Top 10 2022 Predictions: metaverse, regulations, and more

Our top 10: 1. metaverse, 2. inflation, 3. globalization, 4. semi conductors, 5. nuclear energy, 6. payment rails, 7. digitization of paper, 8. NFTs, 9. regulation in crypto markets, and 10. central bank digital currencies.

Co-Created with Steven Dickens

Steven Dickens is VP of Sales and Business Development and Senior Analyst at Futurum Research. He's an alumnus of HPE and IBM where he led multi-hundred million dollar sales teams that operate on the global stage.

Steven is a Board Advisor for the Open Mainframe Project where he was a founding board member and former Chairperson.

A Birmingham, UK native, you can find Steven ogling the latest Omega and raising a beer to the Leicester Tigers.

@StevenDickens3