The Rise of Influencer Capital
We have all heard of influencer marketing. But influencer capital is on the rise where celebrities not just endorse the brand but enhance the value of an asset with their association and take a share of the profits from the inflated transaction proceeds. This piece in the NY Mag shows the concept while on the […]
The market failure approach to executive pay
Compensation paid to CEOs have risen faster than company earnings across the globe, according to the author of this blog, suggesting that the original hypothesis set out three decades ago to use executive pay to drive financial performance hasn’t particularly worked out. Whilst the blog doesn’t offer an alternative, it does dig into what is […]
The Role of Luck
Plenty has been written over the past week or so on the FTX debacle including how this could be the Lehman moment of the cryptoworld or how this is many times worse than the dotcom bust or how the world’s best known venture investors got lured into it. But if you are looking for a […]
Pratilipi is the biggest boom for women writers. Malayalam, Bengali, Hindi rule
India’s women are ascending at a rapid rate although you would not know that if you relied on mainstream media commentary in India. Our colleague, Nandita Rajhansa, wrote a piece on this subject a fortnight ago – see https://marcellus.in/blogs/educated-employed-and-empowered-the-rise-of-indian-women/ Validation of Nandita’s point of view comes from an unusual source. As this piece in The Print […]
The New York City Marathon Is an Engineering Marvel
In last week’s edition of 3 Longs & 3 Shorts, we had a piece which delved into the physics of the tragic stampede in Seoul three weeks ago (see https://www.wired.com/story/how-peaceful-crowds-turn-into-a-deadly-crush/). In response, one of our clients shared a piece on how mega events like the New York Marathon are carefully planned so as to avoid mishaps. […]
Are we really prisoners of geography?
Across the world, a wave of bestsellers – from a variety of authors – is spreading the message that a country’s geographic location defines its destiny. As this long read in The Guardian says “…as faith in an open, trade-based international system falters, map-reading pundits such as Tim Marshall, Robert Kaplan, Ian Morris, George Friedman and […]
Rising Giants’ Road to Antifragility
Brinton Johns & Brad Slingerlend’s 2014 paper, ‘Complexity Investing’, discusses how it’sfutile to forecast extreme event like pandemics, stockmarket crashes and tech disruptions. These events belong to complex ecosystems with unpredictable outcomes and a tendency towards polarization i.e. a few winners prevail – those who constantly adapt, keep building on their strengths and thus end […]
How Peaceful Crowds Turn Into a Deadly Crush
The recent crowd tragedy where more than 150 people died at a Halloween get together in Seoul following similar recent disasters in Indonesia and Houston have prompted the need for authorities to factor in the inherent risks in crowding and manage these events better. The WIRED features Martyn Amos, a professor at Northumbria University who […]
Do nothing dammit
A month ago, Anand Sridharan of Nalanda Capital wrote a lovely blog about how the term ‘value investor’ has been misused and why they would rather call themselves a ‘Business Owner’. Whilst many would think that is easier said than done, Anand has followed up with another brilliant piece about how the ‘Business Owner’ mindset helped the […]
Data goes private
In this succinct edit piece for the Business Standard, TN Ninan makes a very astute observation. He highlights that over the past few years, for a variety of reasons – Covid, political meddling, etc – macroeconomic data made available by the Government of India has become more sporadic and less reliable. This has created a […]
I spent 10 days in a secret Chinese Covid detention centre
China’s Zero-Covid policy has received much criticism elsewhere when the rest of the world has learnt to live with it whilst China is taking the unique route to fighting it despite claiming to be 90% vaccinated. But how exactly is this Zero-Covid policy being implemented. Here’s a first-hand account from a Financial Times Shanghai Correspondent […]
That Reusable Trader Joe’s Bag? It’s Rescuing an Indian Industry
When we visit the US on work, we do a tour of American supermarkets to understand how modern retail could evolve in India. One of the shops we frequent is Trader Joe’s because it offers a curated collection of food and condiments from across the world. In this piece, NY times journalist Sameer Yasir, describes […]
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