I had a really good time at the Commonwealth Club's 84th annual California Book Awards tonight. The free booze and hot babes on hand put me in such good spirits that it's difficult to switch back to sarcasm mode for this article. I said difficult, not impossible.
Ellen Pao is still pursuing her former employer through the courts. I feel for anyone who suffers unjustly at the hands of an employer's asymmetrical power. I've been there myself. I think the easier route for successful VC women is to start their own investment firms and leave the good old boys' clubs far behind. I'm all about women making big bucks on their own, especially if they spend it on dinner and drinks with yours truly.
The hotel business thinks it has a bright future. I think they're wearing rose-colored glasses. Disposable income drives leisure travel spending. Corporate earnings drive business travel spending. Both of those drivers will be imperiled in the next recession. Straight-line growth projections only work in an economic expansion's first couple of years. A lot of franchised downscale hotel operators and Chinese investors are going to get their rear ends handed to them.
US oil frackers are at some kind of crossroads. Saudi Arabia is not turning off its pumping spree and many more highly leveraged US drillers are due to implode. I think any fracking company is crazy to pump more or buy out a competitor unless it has a year's worth of cash, very little debt, and a plan to shut down high-cost wells. I am of course giving frackers too much credit for foresight. A lot of inexperienced fly-by-night operators will become very familiar with bankruptcy court, and probably divorce court.
I don't plan to write a book for submission to the next California Book Awards. If I did, it would be about the stupid investors who went whole hog into hotels and fracking. The sequel would be about hot finance babes who should partner with me on early-stage ventures, plus other exciting ventures of an intimate nature. I am sure these literary works would sell like hotcakes because I am clearly the greatest writer in human history.
Ellen Pao is still pursuing her former employer through the courts. I feel for anyone who suffers unjustly at the hands of an employer's asymmetrical power. I've been there myself. I think the easier route for successful VC women is to start their own investment firms and leave the good old boys' clubs far behind. I'm all about women making big bucks on their own, especially if they spend it on dinner and drinks with yours truly.
The hotel business thinks it has a bright future. I think they're wearing rose-colored glasses. Disposable income drives leisure travel spending. Corporate earnings drive business travel spending. Both of those drivers will be imperiled in the next recession. Straight-line growth projections only work in an economic expansion's first couple of years. A lot of franchised downscale hotel operators and Chinese investors are going to get their rear ends handed to them.
US oil frackers are at some kind of crossroads. Saudi Arabia is not turning off its pumping spree and many more highly leveraged US drillers are due to implode. I think any fracking company is crazy to pump more or buy out a competitor unless it has a year's worth of cash, very little debt, and a plan to shut down high-cost wells. I am of course giving frackers too much credit for foresight. A lot of inexperienced fly-by-night operators will become very familiar with bankruptcy court, and probably divorce court.
I don't plan to write a book for submission to the next California Book Awards. If I did, it would be about the stupid investors who went whole hog into hotels and fracking. The sequel would be about hot finance babes who should partner with me on early-stage ventures, plus other exciting ventures of an intimate nature. I am sure these literary works would sell like hotcakes because I am clearly the greatest writer in human history.
