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(Financial Times) Encouraging more women to start businesses and not providing them with adequate capital for growth is like sending talented novice mountain climbers up Everest without oxygen, a guide and a tent. Few will make it to base camp, and for those that do, the odds of survival are even lower. Still, when this…

(Forbes) The investment frenzy we all witnessed in the fall of 2021 has suddenly come to a standstill. The bubble that has pervaded the VC ecosystem has finally burst and pundits are echoing blame on economic shocks like a pandemic that paused the supply chain and created high unemployment, and then followed by the invasion…

(Forbes) This coming Thursday in Congress, the Task Force On Financial Technology is holding a hearing titled “Combatting Tech Bro Culture: Understanding Obstacles to Investments in Diverse-Owned Fintechs.” With Sequoia and AZ16 headlining a recent investment in a firm “seeking to break down barriers between blockchains” as reported by Forbes, it appears the next barriers…

(Wired) Google AI researcher Blake Lemoine was recently placed on administrative leave after going public with claims that LaMDA, a large language model designed to converse with people, was sentient. At one point, according to reporting by The Washington Post, Lemoine went so far as to demand legal representation for the LaMDA; he has said…

(HBR) Despite their reputation in the 1980s as corporate raiders, most private-equity firms attempt to improve the performance of their portfolio companies through better corporate governance. Historically their business model has been to create value by sharpening the focus and oversight of largely ignored business units inside conglomerates or poorly managed private companies, such as…

(Bloomberg) The current maelstrom should be seen as “manna from heaven,’’ said Kiernan, co-founder of Invest Green, a Toronto-based firm that educates investors on sustainable investing. “It should ideally catalyze a big shakeout, an incursion on greenwashing and result in a smaller, leaner industry with much better clarity and quality.” The list of insiders discomfited…

(Forbes) Close on the heels of the climate disclosures for companies, the SEC has issued a much-needed proposal on standardizing ESG disclosures for ESG funds. I believe greenwashing is rampant in ESG funds as I have documented in academic papers with colleagues and in Forbes columns before. The DWS greenwashing scandal is potentially just the…

(The Financial Times) A group of renowned technologists has joined forces to urge US lawmakers to crack down on the burgeoning cryptocurrencies industry, marking the first concerted effort to counter well-financed lobbying by blockchain companies. Harvard lecturer Bruce Schneier, former Microsoft engineer Miguel de Icaza and principal engineer at Google Cloud Kelsey Hightower, are among…

(Barron’s) Emerging critiques of ESG are strongly grounded in the economic consequences of investors’ narrow focus on ESG priorities. For example, the cost of capital for activities frowned upon by ESG–like fossil fuel production–has significantly increased, contributing to inflation and undermining US energy security. Yet the concept of stakeholder capitalism is proving more durable. Sometimes…

(The New Yorker) The world’s biggest companies—and, indeed, any company or individual with cash in the bank—have been inadvertently fuelling the climate crisis. Such cash, left in banks and other financial institutions that lend to the fossil-fuel industry, builds pipelines and funds oil exploration and, in the process, produces truly immense amounts of carbon. The…