> In 2000, when the Hearst Corporation was facing antitrust concerns (including from Fang) over its acquisition of the San Francisco Chronicle, she acquired the San Francisco Examiner from them for $100 while also receiving a $66 million subsidy from Hearst to run the Examiner for three years, becoming the first Asian American to own a major daily newspaper in the US.[4][7][5] In 2004, she sold it to Philip Anschutz for $11 million.[7]
Most of the time when people acquire something for $1 or $100 or whatever the deal includes them assuming some of the existing liabilities. Sometimes you have to pay a consideration of value to make the contract enforceable but the $100 isn't what she's actually providing, she's probably underwritten some of the creditors or agreed to pay staff and suppliers or whatever. It's not actually $100 is the whole amount she would have been on the hook for.
I suspect for every person who's bought a company for nothing, and ended up in profit, there are _many_ people who've bought a company for nothing, and ended up blowing millions on it. Unless you're really good at this sort of thing and/or lucky it may not be a deal you _want_.
The whole set of wealthy people is a small subset of the tried-to-get-wealthy set.
Society has a hyper-fixation on the winners, and is largely blind to the much larger set of losers. "School of Hard Knocks", the social media channel where the kid goes around interviewing wealthy and ultra wealthy individuals about how they made it, has a very common theme: "Be willing to take risks".
This pretty much translates to "I put it all on black 3 times, and it hit 3 times". He never interviews the losers.
It's not a subset, as there are plenty of people who are wealthy because someone up their family tree tried and succeeded at getting wealthy, and subsequent generations simply failed to be in the "actively try to get poor" set.
The difference is that "I put it all on black 3 times" is purely up to chance, whereas business is generally not. There is luck involved, but skill or at least expertise about what the market will support still comes into play.
Someone who knows what they're doing has a much greater likelihood of success, unlike when you put it all on black.
It helps to have success. I know someone who the bank called (before I was born - likely 1960s) to buy a nearly bankrupt plumbing business. He turned the company around and sold it for a lot of money a few years later. However the banks called he has a history of success running businesses. He did a similar story with a trash pickup service a different time.
Damn, both her Wikipedia article as well that of her as her "archenemy" Rose Pak are fascinating (even though I don't like either of them based on what I read).
A few key areas where our differences are advantages (in our pov):
1. We handle recovery e2e (both retries & communications)
2. We provide detailed real-time analytics on performance
3. Higher ROI (cost less and are directly responsible for more recoveries)
4. They're competing to be the card vault (replace Stripe, Adyen, Spreedly, etc. vault) whereas our vision is revenue optimization from initial authorization to recovery (complimentary to any stack)
Success rate is a helpful metric, but it depends on which player/party is interacting with the Studio. Studios lend themselves well to Consumer fields which traditionally have lower exit multiples than B2B/Infra/Software.
- Are you an LP? You can have great paper returns, but poor DPI over time. How do you feel being an LP not seeing that GP's are double dipping on equity grants at company formation for them to only secondary as fast as possible after a quick markup (easier done in the last few years in zero interest rate environment) arguably breaching fiduciary responsibility?
- Are you a "Founder" getting hosed on equity? You do receive a ton of support and resources, but you're paying with the most expensive cost of capital (equity). Do you have full control of the company? What are the voting rights of your stock grants? Where does the buck truly stop?
- Are you an early stage employee getting a sliver of the already somewhat upside down cap-table?
This seems great! I’m excited to try it out. It reminds me of Voiceliner which I’ve been using for a while now. Voiceliner does on device transcription & allows for creating hierarchy to notes / ideas with export functions too
Damn, I wish I knew about Vosk (which Voiceliner uses) a few months ago. I was struggling with Sphinx and couldn't get it to have any accuracy. I will definitely check this out.
Looks like you will also need to get a Series 63 from the local state securities regulator as well, which requires sponsorship. From the NASAA FAQ:
>>If I pass a Series 65 examination, is that all I need to do to qualify as an accredited investor?:
No. The SEC’s August 26, 2020 order allows persons who hold an “Investment Adviser Representative license (Series 65) … in good standing” to qualify as accredited investors. The SEC explained in its Small Entity Compliance Guide for Amendments to the Accredited Investor Definition that “a person seeking accredited investor status by passing the Series 65 exam would also need to be licensed as an investment adviser representative in her state and would need to comply with all state-specific licensing requirements (e.g., paying dues, etc.).”
In order to become a licensed investment adviser representative, a person must first apply through the investment adviser firm with which the individual is affiliated for registration with a state securities regulator. Please check with your state securities regulator for specific requirements. [1]
>>Do I need to have a sponsor before I take the Series 63, 65, or 66? No. Unsponsored candidates who are not Form U4 registered or currently affiliated with a firm through FINRA’s Web CRD system should open an exam enrollment window via FINRA.org request and pay for the S63, S65, or S66 exams.
So if the S65 and the S63 are both required, then a person can do attempt both without requiring sponsorship from a financial firm. The additional cost of the S63 is another $147 on top of the $187 for the S65 (totaly exam cost $334).
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flintstone_House [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/06/flintstone-h...