Posts by lucidcapitalism

(Bloomberg) In one sense, investors and regulators should be grateful to Sam Bankman-Fried, the erstwhile head of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. The spectacular flameout of his virtual empire has evolved from a cautionary tale into a master class on everything that’s wrong with crypto markets. As customers and creditors sort through what remains of the…

(Bloomberg) The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement penalties surged to a record in the government’s fiscal 2022, the agency said on Tuesday. The SEC’s enforcement actions resulted in $6.4 billion in fines and money ordered to be reimbursed to investors, up from just $3.9 billion in 2021, according to an annual report. “We don’t expect…

(Harvard Business Review) Over the last five years, the corporate world has focused increasingly on implementing stakeholder capitalism through Environmental, Social and Governance principles (ESG). However, is ESG a distraction to cash-strapped talent and time constrained startups? Should founders build their business first and worry about ESG later? Quite the contrary: start-ups have an advantage over larger companies whose “installed base” of assets,…

(The New York Times) On Friday, FTX, facing a cash shortfall of $8 billion and scrambling to drum up money, filed for bankruptcy. Mr. Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are examining whether FTX improperly used customer funds to prop up a separate trading firm, Alameda Research,…

(Fortune) The specter of political gridlock looms over the U.S. this morning, as the Republicans seem to have taken back the House while the Democrats may hold on to the Senate. But if that quagmire doesn’t set America back, irresponsible innovation may, warns a group of four dozen tech companies and investment firms. Read more…

(The Wall Street Journal) Deloitte’s latest climate survey of 700 executives, conducted in August and September 2022, sheds new light on executives’ top concerns surrounding the climate crisis, the actions they are taking and those they would like to see governments take, and the gap that must be closed between sentiment and action to advance…

(Wired) Not long after Elon Musk announced plans to acquire Twitter last March, he mused about open sourcing “the algorithm” that determines how tweets are surfaced in user feeds so that it could be inspected for bias. His fans—as well as those who believe the social media platform harbors a left-wing bias—were delighted. But today,…

(Fast Company) The introduction of the internet and instant global communication drastically changed our approach to personal privacy. Every app, purchase, or online search request has us sharing so much of ourselves to get started. A name, email, phone number, or address is all someone needs to unravel one’s entire personal life. With so much…

(Financial Times) So can investors use their muscle to counter this? Not easily: fund managers have had scant leverage in recent years, because capital was abundant. Employee protests often seemed more effective, since talent has been scarce. And Musk, for his part, has been scathing of ESG in the past – and keen to muzzle…

(The Washington Post) Two years ago, Silicon Valley’s biggest technology giants faced criticism from activists and voter suppression experts for not moving sooner to restrict Donald Trump’s accounts after his repeated false claims disputing the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Now, a coalition of 60 consumer and civil rights groups says Meta, Twitter, TikTok and…