Books, music, and other recommendations

Information and memory, data and recall, are two sides of the same coin, or maybe not even. These are certainly parts of the same continuum of inputs and outputs, but whether truly opposite is debatable. Speaking in analog, the cycle is roughly as follows: We experience, we register, at some point we remember, (or not), and the memory shapes a new experience. So it goes, around and around. In more digital terms – and as we increasingly live our lives on devices, more digital nomenclature is perhaps appropriate – we search, we share, we view and listen, we interact and organize, we check in, we check out, we transact and pay, we create, we do some other things, and our action produces bits. We store these bits, or the bits are stored on our behalf, with or without our knowledge, and this is called data. There is so much of it now that we refer to it by a special name, big data, just so we know of which data we speak.

To be clear, big data refers to our collective, (rather than individual), outputs. Were we to interact digitally with our personal computing device only, this data would be private and would reside as an individual store on some hard-drive that we must remember to destroy, or not. But none of us interact digitally in this fashion, or very few of us anymore. Instead, we are online, we are mobile, and in the cloud, we socialize with the worldwide web or with an app, which more or less amounts to the same thing. And in so doing we contribute our individual profile to the collective. We become part of a demographic unit that, as a unit or as part of the bigger whole from which it is extracted, is analyzed and targeted. Thus we are offered objects or we are shown advertisements, and thus our reactions are predicted with statistical precision.

The summary presented, in any case, covers one part of the continuum, the forecast: Data is stored, analysis conducted, conclusions are reached, messages are targeted, or actions otherwise anticipated. Business intelligence – often derivative of other intelligence forms – is roughly based on this sequence. But another part of the cycle has been, so far at least, less feverishly pursued. Granted, it’s a piece that may not lead to commerce as directly as ads or predictive analysis, but it is as critical a fraction of the data-processing line as is the forward-looking vector. This is the backward arrow, the recall, or the individual’s memory. There are two sides on this coin – information and recall – as has been pointed out at the top.

We experience, we register, at some point we remember, and the memory shapes a new experience; so it goes. While big data has been a sophisticated anticipation tool, the same has not yet served as a device to help us to remember. Search functionality has been (arguably) something of the sort, but with this technique one first must remember to search… which sort of defeats the purpose, or it doesn’t fully accomplish the purpose described. A truer memory device would push historical information to an individual, helping him or her to recall what was forgotten. And the best memory device would bring back only subjects that one would care to remember… thus, both anticipating and recalling, simultaneously.

* The late Philip K. Dick once wrote a story in which a commercial enterprise enables its customers to remember (or, rather, believe that they remember) what they wish to remember. Some will recognize the story by its Hollywood variant, Total Recall. The old guy was way ahead of his time, and ours.

Because the happenings in and around Wall Street are such high drama – even on quiet days in quiet years, let alone since the tumult began – the subject lends itself to movies with ease. We remember Gordon Gekko back in the day, and more recently again, who turned the subject to a swashbuckling adventure (“you gotta be kidding me, lunch is for wimps“). The pseudo-documentary Too Big To Fail, presumably realistic, also presented its subject within a mixture of grand opera and the racetrack. That may be an aspect of reality, but it’s also one of fantasy, and the former tends to lose stature when the latter walks into the room.

As has been the case since the cowboy movies – only to draw an arbitrary demarkation – entertainment influences our perception. Just as John Wayne came to symbolize a heroic element in our culture, so too Wall Street now symbolizes something else. Which is not to say that the reality behind the symbol necessarily negates it, but it is to say that reality is complicatedÂ and, as a result of such complexity and entangled pieces, it is easy to distort. Just as the Wild West was a more nuanced historical phenomenon than John Wayne led us to believe, so also Wall Street has its nuances. The tangle of these would take us far beyond finance or popular culture – we’d even make a stop or two on Main Street along the way – and movies aren’t the medium to deal with such a mess.

But good movies can bring out an aspect, or maybe a couple, and attempt to illustrate, elucidate, and with a little good fortune help to untangle a knot or two. Such a movie – in the Wall Street genre – is Margin Call. The story takes place over a (roughly) 24-hour period, in which the figurative time-bomb of mortgage-backed securities is discovered by a team of executives and analysts at a fictionalized variation of what could be any large trading institution. Individual motivations, politics, ambitions, personal background and reactions are intertwined with matters of esoteric analysis, global finance, and the mechanics of capital flows. There are no heroes or villains here. There is a system, and there are people, and there is history, and there are consequences that are often impossible to control. There are no easy answers, nor even easy questions.

In one memorable scene, the executive committee headed by the firm’s CEO is gathered in the middle of the night before the start of trading, to decide the morning’s course of action. The junior analyst who has uncovered the figurative time-bomb earlier that evening is asked by this CEO to describe his discovery. “And please, talk to me as though I were a young child,” he says to the Ph.D. in rocket science, who needs a few moments to prepare his response accordingly. At the culmination of this meeting, after an animated argument between the CEO and the head of his mortgage-backed trading desk, the CEO wraps up his case with the following pronouncement, as if to underline and punctuate with an exclamation mark his view of the enormity, the monument of the circumstance: “This is it! This is it!”

Long after having seen this movie, the line continues to reverberate in my mind: This is it. Reading about the European economy and its related entanglements each day, watching our U.S. counterpart sputter along punch-drunk with no real uplift in sight as Wall Street reacts in its own nervous way from one headline to the next, I feel with increased conviction that, well, this is it. What I mean is not that this is the end – not at all – but that the period and its events are very serious indeed, more so perhaps than in my generation’s lifetime. This should cause us all to sharpen our sense of seriousness, as it were, and it may even behove us to not wait to be told. We can’t control the course of world events, but we can control our individual domains. Professionalism, commitment, dedication, hard work, are not mere slogans or schoolhouse cliche. This is it, and it began in the schoolhouse.

Insularity is not the only cause, but is a shared characteristic. When trouble happens, insularity is not far from the scene. When we suspect that trouble is ahead, we often find such hints mixed up with insular qualities. Insularity, with its root in island, is a state of comfortable isolation that is only sometimes geographic. It is as likely thematic, or temporal, or social… cliques being one common form, although such groups not necessarily consisting of teenagers. We are sometimes insular in time, thinking for example that an era exists in isolation. This makes us a clique of modernity. Or we may be insular in our views of finance, economics, technology, industry, or any other aspect of practical reality, such insularity keeping us from framing narrow subjects in a broader context. Trouble sometimes happens very far from its first root, so long into its future we don’t even recognize the source looking back, and we can’t imagine the effect looking forward, stuck as we are, insularly, in our present moment.

In the pedestrian language of markets, insularity is referred to as a herd, leading to bubbles and corresponding pops. In such cases the outliers of opinion are often referred to as contrarian, and even if this is strictly speaking correct it is a trait that merely runs contra to insularity. Otherwise, though almost always with hindsight, after these rebels have been proven right in some fashion, they are called visionary. This is also true, in a manner of speaking, although their vision is nothing more than an ability to see – no, rather, a willingness to look – panoramically beyond the island. It isn’t as easy as it seems, putting it that way, to be either contrarian or visionary, else we would all qualify. This would make us a herd of contrarian visionaries – only resetting the borders of the island, that’s all.

These reflections about islands, literally and figuratively, were brought to mind in part by Michael Lewis’s book, Boomerang, and more profoundly by news about the death of Steve Jobs. The book begins with the story of a small island nation becoming a massive hedge fund almost overnight, based on availability of credit, confluence of short-term economic conditions, and a narrow interpretation of finance theory by several MBAs. It is a cautionary tale that extends beyond the confines of a small island nation, and it stands in contrast to that of Apple’s true visionary, whose premature end has moved so many of us. That Apple – under Jobs’s watch – has become one of the world’s most valuable companies, even as nations and big banks fall apart, has been an effect (not a cause) of our admiration, and our current sense of loss.

The legacy of Steve Jobs, much more than any individual product or technical direction – neither of which, alone, would have left an impression deep enough to warrant the massive-scale distress upon his departure – lies in the approach. Throughout the man’s career, this combined art with science, technology with esthetics, practical solution with a global context, near-term drive with longer-term direction. As events around us unfold, we recognize it now as an approach that ran visibly counter. The Mac, the iPhone, the iPad, and a host of other products that Steve Jobs has left behind, are most valuable as a reminder of the capacity of the human mind when insular constraints are removed. Surrounded as we are otherwise by the effects of short-sightedness and insularity, it would be easy to forget.

In his biography of the Rothschild banking dynasty, the economic historian Niall Ferguson depicts an organization that was founded on several core principles: internal unity, external relevancy, and long-term commitment. The particulars and circumstances in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, when the Rothschild firm was built, were obviously different from our own, but history can teach us important lessons if it isn’t read too literally. Two hundred years ago the firm’s clients were governments and politicians, and this clientele benefited from patience and a view to the long term. Two hundred years ago relevancy to this base was optimized by one’s ability to reach across many jurisdictions and markets. Unity, in the Rothschild context – a firm that branched out to all major capitals to serve multiple factions – was made possible by strong family bonds and manifested itself in consistency. Without this, the other two factors would have been rendered meaningless.

That was then, and even though we pride ourselves today on being innovative and almost scientific in our approach to strategy, the success drivers of the Rothschild firm were essentially the same as those to which we give more modern names. Family unity is now called teamwork, partnership, and a strong company culture. External relevancy is now less a matter of geographic tentacles, but the concept of diversifying beyond a solitary core remains as critical. Long-term orientation is now not only the development of asset value, not only potential sacrifice today for more lasting reward down the road, but as importantly an ability to adapt and maneuver with changing circumstance over an extended period.

These qualities and strategic elements point to a seemingly contradictory blend: specialization on one hand, and diversification on the other. Specialization is essential for a deep commitment to one’s customer base, but it must be a commitment that anticipates change – a defining characteristic of the era – and wide variance of customer needs. While specialization allows one to recognize these, diversification makes it possible to assist in multiple ways, as fitting the circumstance. Long-term relevancy is not easy to achieve, but it is essential to success in any segment.

CoRise is a merchant banking firm in the classic sense, structured for current realities. We aim to be relevant into the long term with a unified approach. Our three core services – investment banking, industry research, and strategic equity – augment, enhance and leverage each other to the combined benefit of clients, investors and entrepreneurs. We can be advisors or principals as the situation dictates, we are experienced and versed in all capital markets and corporate finance product, and we are long-term focused on the themes that impact our clientele. As our very name suggests, unity and partnership are the essence of our culture. Our tagline describes the firm completely: Merchant banking for the age of invention.

A strategic philosopher once advised his students to follow in the path of history’s greatest. Thus, even if failing to live up to such loftiness they would fall short of a very high target. Like all professionals, we are eager to find instruction in the strategies of our most successful predecessors (and there have been many after the Rothschilds). The greatest among these, it seems, excelled at something besides strategy: Execution and a job well done. We will be very attentive to this aspect of the trade in the months and many years ahead.

It used to be a more regular feature of this blog to make “other recommendations.” The summer would have been a good time to revitalize the idea, and the storm passing through the city as I write reminds me that summer is still not over. On days like these one has to make an effort to see it, and what better way to wait out the passing of the gray in New York than to reminisce about the sunshine, ocean and blue sky – in Los Angeles. Watching images of wind and flooding on the local news, what better time to think of the golden sprawl of freeway lanes and low houses on the outskirts of a desert. The bungalows and hidden villas in the hills, the beaches, the winding traffic on Sunset Boulevard past the billboards and clubs, these are fantasies for any New Yorker to entertain in the subway rush, even after the rain subsides. If it isn’t too late then, here are summer reading recommendations for you – in or out of the subway, during or after the storm – to transport you to L.A. and its environs. (In keeping with a Southern California motif of beauty that is better sampled than analyzed, each title is accompanied by a selection from the text itself.) And let’s leave it at that for now.

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye. “The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Terry Lennox’s left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one… ‘Look, mister, would you mind a whole lot pulling your leg into the car so I can sort of shut the door? Or should I open it all the way so you can fall out?’… I was living that year in a house on Yucca Avenue in the Laurel Canyon district. It was a small hillside house on a dead-end street with a long flight of redwood steps to the front door and a groove of eucalyptus trees across the way.”

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49. “San Narciso lay further south, near L.A. Like many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts – census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all over-laid with access roads to its own freeway. She looked down a slope, needing to squint for the sunlight, onto a vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together… and she thought of the time she’d opened a transistor radio to replace a battery and seen her first printed circuit.”

Joan Didion, The White Album. “It was difficult to ascertain what anyone involved did want, except for the action to continue. ‘You pull out,’ the agent said, ‘it dies right here, not that I want to influence your decision.’ The director picked up the bottle of Margaux they were drinking and examined the label. ‘Nice little red,’ the agent said. ‘Very nice.’ I left as the Sanka was being served.”

Charles Bukowski, Post Office. “‘Chinaski! Take route 539!’ The toughest in the station. Apartment houses with boxes that had scrubbed-out names or no names at all, under tiny lightbulbs… Old ladies standing in halls, up and down the streets, asking the same question… After three years I made ‘regular.’”

James Ellroy, White Jazz. “Dig it, hepcats: Meyer Harris Cohen, the marvelous, benevolent, malevolent Mickster, has been out of Federal custody since September, ’57. He did 3 to Â 5 for income tax evasion; his ragtag band dispersed, and the former mob kingpin’s life since then has been one long series of skidmarks across the City of the Fallen Angels, the town he used to rule with bullets, bribes and bullspit bonhomie. Dig, children, and smell the burning rubber of those skids.”

Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust. “Around quitting time, Tod Hackett heard a great din on the road outside his office. The groan of leather mingled with the jangle of iron and over all beat the tattoo of a thousand hooves. He hurried to the window… While he watched, a little fat man, wearing a cork sun-helmet, polo shirt and knickers, darted around the corner of the building in pursuit of the army. ‘Stage Nine – you bastards – Stage Nine!’ he screamed through a small megaphone.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Love of the Last Tycoon. “You can take Hollywood for granted like I did, or you can dismiss it with the contempt we reserve for what we don’t understand. It can be understood, too, but only dimly and in flashes. Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads.”

For further illumination, here are some other suggestions on the subject: John Fante, Ask the Dust; Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan; James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice; and Samuel Fuller, A Third Face. Enjoy.

A while ago, more than a year, when I was only warming up to this blogging thing, I whipped out a quickie about the inverse relationship between web access and memory. This was not researched or particularly polished: It was, like I said, a quickie, and was based on anecdotage more than anything robust. I suggested, in fact, that studies should be conducted to give the subject more weight. Since then – this was a while ago – studies have been conducted and the subject has picked up a bit of traction. Studies now show that our ability to search for pretty much anything at more or less any time has had a negative impact on our ability to remember. In other words, we don’t need to remember because it is remembered for us. Which is what I suggested in advance of studies, a while ago.

Search and remembrance have enjoyed a history of entanglement that predates Google, predates the web and studies and many things that may or may not have been forgotten since the turn of the current century, when our memory has apparently started to break down. For example, there was a novel by one Marcel Proust, which in its first English translation was called Remembrance of Things Past, and in its second and more literal variant, In Search of Lost Time. The book was composed over a period of thirteen years inside the isolation of a cork-lined room, so designed in order to eliminate noise from its surroundings. Although we don’t have such rooms now, the effect probably compares to the trance in which we may find ourselves, fixated on the colorful screens of mobile devices. The author, in short, was in his own world for years, and the line between invention and recollection was in his case debatable to say the least. Where he may have failed to remember, he was meticulous to create, and the result was a fiction at least as much as a memoir, shelved to this day in fiction aisles of bookstores, as it happens.

This parenthetical preamble brings us to a social network that was recently introduced, the purpose of which is allegedly to help the modern Google searcher to remember. The network is called Proust, and the basis of it lies in Marcel a little less than it does in Vanity Fair magazine, which several years ago revived a popular questionnaire form from the 19th century. This has been dubbed the Proust Questionnaire, as the author had apparently enjoyed responding to such forms in his youth, when these were a pastime for some. Typical inquiries here pertain to sentiments, opinions and sundry intimacies, the idea being for the subject to reflect on these and exercise one’s memory. There is also the collateral possibility of returning to his or her original responses long after the fact, and thus remember the person he or she was once upon a time.

It isn’t clear that Vanity Fair’s intended use has been along these lines, but the new social network, Proust, seems poised to go that way. (One of the ironies of the product’s introduction is that almost none who have written about it seem to remember its true origin. Some have made reference to the famous madeleine episode in Proust’s novel, in which a taste activates a flood of memories in the author, while some have given credit to him as the inventor of the questionnaire. And although I haven’t been patient enough to read more than a few such reviews, I have to assume that the variations on the theme are many.)

Besides Proust, the author, we may also refer to Philip K. Dick for commentary: In particular, the story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.” It is about a technology that plants artificial memories into users’ minds, so that fictions are recalled by them as if real. Dick and Proust were very different philosophers indeed, but the fickleness of memory did not escape either of them… nor did they fail to notice the fine line between memory and fiction – truth and the absence of it, which happens when memory falls short. For this reason alone, Proust, the network, may be a valuable addition to the popular web, to social dialogue, and to the colorful screens that distract us in our travels.

Precision and organization are at the core of digital communication. While it is possible to reduce the mechanism of 1s and 0s to microscopic levels so that almost any nuance can be dealt with digitally, it is not possible to go so far as a point between the 1 and the 0. That would be analog, and as any audiophile will tell you, it is difficult, if not impossible, to recapture the grandeur of analog with digital. But this isn’t about music, this is about social interaction as seen through the lens of digital communication. More precisely, it is about a new social media platform created in an environment where 1s and 0s reign, and where organization and elegance are synonymous. The result is necessarily going to be something like Google’s Circles.

Not for the first time on this blog the roads lead us to Borges. And not uniquely among the Argentine’s scribblings we find reference to imaginary books that the bibliophile and author – who had late in life lost his eyesight – was forced to invent because he could no longer read. In this case, a Chinese encyclopedia and its entry on the subject of animals: â€œAnimals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.â€ Those who have used or read about Circles may understand why Borges comes to mind.

The two – Borges and Google – have taken the same subject and drawn conclusions that are clearly different. The ironic treatment of the theme by Borges is an indication of the futility he may have perceived in trying to categorize things, animals, let alone humans; while the perfect seriousness of Google’s approach suggests they disagree. Maybe the difference is between an author trained in analog nuance and a company built on digital organization. Or maybe the difference is simply one of the times: It would be inconceivable to someone even as recently as the ’60s or ’70s that he or she be part of a social graph, just as it is inconceivable for many of us to feel otherwise. Circles, in other words, may just be a reflection of the era.

Taking a step back from the picture, however, pausing to consider what it actually means to say that social networking built on organized structure is a reflection of the era, we arrive at all sorts of interesting questions. For example, what happens to self-expression when it is directed like traffic into organized channels? That the channel into which we might communicate influences the nature of our communication is pretty clear, but if the variety of such channels becomes limited, does the variety of our communication then also become so? Separately, from the perspective of recipient rather than originator of communication, how do we feel about landing in someone’s structured circle, as opposed to a different circle of the same person or a different person’s circle? Even if pleased with the selection, would we constantly appreciate it? And finally, how do these questions and issues relate to openness and the free flow of media that the Internet is intended to promote?

Speaking of openness and free flow and communication and all that, and since we’re being literary-like in the present discussion, I feel inclined to conclude with a message from a writer who celebrated free flow and communication and openness like almost no other: Walt Whitman. “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” In which digitalÂ circleÂ does this analog guy belong?

Among the changes in circumstance affecting the startup that wasÂ launched two hundred thirty-five years ago has been the evolution ofÂ media and the technology that supports it. As an industry, media isÂ perhaps without equal in its position of rank in the way that governmentsÂ and democracy function. It is a feedback loop between leadership andÂ constituencies, a conversation mechanism that fuels popular discourse,Â an outlet for information and its close adjunct, entertainment, and a tool for theÂ shaping of education and culture.Â Media is many things in addition, and few of these are trivial in anÂ era marked by instant and nearly ubiquitous access. One might even goÂ so far as to say that the nature of media – in its variety of forms -Â is the nature of how we are governed. To study the history of media asÂ this has evolved from speeches to leaflets to newspapers to motionÂ pictures, radio, television and the Internet, is to study the historyÂ of civilization.

An entertaining and at the same time informative resource for me has been the autobiography of the late film director Sam Fuller. His career spanned more than sixty years, beginning with newspaperÂ journalism and ending with action cinema. Some of the hipper modernÂ filmmakers – Scorsese, Tarantino, Jarmush, and others – have looked to FullerÂ as a forerunner, like he in turn looked to John Ford andÂ the legendary newspaper editors of Park Row. From the very beginningÂ of mass media there were parallels if not direct ties betweenÂ journalism and theatrics, and Sam Fuller embodies this history likeÂ almost no other.

Starting out as a messenger boy for the likes of Arthur Brisbane and WilliamÂ Randolph Hearst, progressing to crime reporting at one of the many New York papers in the 1920s (the websites of the time),Â The New York Evening Graphic, later settling in LosÂ Angeles to write screenplays for crime dramas before volunteering forÂ the armed forces in World War II (in order “to cover the biggest crime story of the century”), Fuller didn’t really come into his own until his return to Hollywood after the battle ended. The rest is filmÂ history, as they say, but from its beginning to its finale Fuller’s biography isÂ also the story of an industry marked by technical evolution, changesÂ in popular tastes, changes in global politics and economics, and a quickening dynamic among all these variables, leading to where we are today.

In a few weeks, presumably, the maker of games such as Farmville – aÂ popular technology platform (with Hollywood board representation) – willÂ begin to trade as a public company. This will be ahead of an expectedÂ public listing by the dominant social network and commerce platform, and on the heels of the leadingÂ personal promotion network having become a public company with a multi-billion dollarÂ market cap. The most popular newsfeed based on snippets andÂ headlines may or may not be far behind. The significance of these events andÂ the trend they represent in the context of major historical landmarks andÂ societal flows,Â will one day be subjects of fascinating study. At that time, three great American cities will stand central, and will prove important even by standards of Washington D.C.: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, not necessarily in that order.

(Sam Fuller’s autobiography is out of print, but may be purchased used online or from the stacks of the Strand Bookstore, like almost anything.)

Heading into Independence Day weekend and with Zynga, MySpace, Google, and Facebook all in the news with some kind of social network activity, I can’t help but wonder what the founding fathers would have thought. It took them about a month to pass a letter around between Philadelphia and Boston, and still they innovated a form of government. They sort of understood something about electricity and kites, and the startup they co-founded survives more than two centuries later, without a single pivot. Sure, that the British were coming would have been more effectively tweeted than shouted from a horse, but then again, this presupposes Twitter. Maybe Revere’s followers would have been busy LOLing or rather FTWing, or heavens knows what else, or maybe the message would have DM-failed. Or whatever.

Here we are, two hundred thirty-five years later, and half of the technologists plus most of the entrepreneurs are trying to solve the mystery of Facebook. Others are merely hoping to imitate it successfully. Google probably falls into both categories. MySpace is too late for either one. Zynga does pretty well as a focus-group. And much of the rest of consumer media is, in one way or another, defining itself in relation to where Facebook stands on the position: That’s overstating it, not Facebook per se, but perhaps social media generally. I wonder what the founding fathers would have thought. It’s fair to ask this, I believe, because they were entrepreneurs with a track record, and they were moreover visionary, energetic, polished, and understood how to build something from nothing.

What is most marvelous about the birth of our nation, more inspiring than the battle itself and the politics that led to it, is the system that was established with little true precedent. (This is perhaps an exaggeration, there is always precedent, depending on how literal or figurative one likes it. Suffice to say that there was less precedent for the form of government that exists to this day than there has been for Google+, or even for Facebook (alas, poor MySpace, we knew you well).) With limited precedent, John Adams and his colleagues invented an approach that works almost timelessly, and while entrepreneurs and other business students are digesting the methods of any variety of technology pioneers and startup founders, the lessons of the founding fathers may be included in the same curriculum without risk of time inadequately spent.

Ironically, one of the principal lessons is this: In preparation for their monumental achievement, the founding fathers were universal scholars. They did not keep within limited circles to themselves, but rather, they branched out. There was little of what we these days refer to as groupthink, yetÂ there was virtually endless debate. The scholarship that prevailed and that factored into every-day discourse was extensive; The Declaration of Independence stands as proof.Â There is a lesson in this, as there is also a distinction between invention and progress. The latter always includes the former, but the reverse is not always true.

It seems like a distant past, or maybe fantasy, perhaps something that only happened on screen. Entrepreneurship led its financing rather than the other way around, and entrepreneurs thought larger than a product. Take, for example, Tucker, take Howard Hughes, take that young visionary in The Social Network. Presumably these characters, as portrayed in film, had some basis in actuality. Presumably these were cases of real founders who succeeded because of big ideas, big vision, that caused capital to form. These entrepreneurs were passionate about building big businesses, rather than completing big financings, and the finance arrived on its own. In contrast, according to studies that may or may not be less fictional, entrepreneurs are now focused on the exit. Usually this means a relatively small and quick turnaround, driven by market conditions, one or two steps after funding is in place.

The differences in execution style are multiple between one case and the other. On one hand, the attention to exit is an attention to the venture community and the satisfaction of its needs. It is an approach to entrepreneurship that caters to the interests of financing sources, that seeks instruction from investors, and that requires permission more than vision. On the other hand, and in this context, the duality is also one of going public versus selling to a strategic buyer. If the ultimate goal were to build a business for the long term and to operate it independently, with a view to greatness rather than exit, that is an IPO in the making. When the IPO market is closed off one must look to M&A, and in this scenario the end-goal is different. It is closer to building a product than building an enterprise. The business acquires, the product gets bought.

It is then, to some extent, due to circumstance that entrepreneurial style may have shifted. Although IPOs are picking up, these are still only accessible by a limited sub-segment of the start-up universe. These are companies with substantial revenues, that surpassed the product stage years ago and that were committed to becoming large and robust even when others were shying away. This approach was a rare thing and as the IPO market remains an exclusive club, the entrepreneurial mind-frame still isn’t (generally speaking) molded these days for long-term independence. The issue is circular and it remains a question of building to a vision, or building to an exit.

Stripped down to the core, the issue is one of definition, as is so often the case. And by definition I also mean scope. What drives what, who drives whom, where goes how, etc. and so on. If, rather than catering to the whims of funding sources – which are fickle and short-lived – entrepreneurship (broadly speaking) would remember its permanent place, its purpose – that is to say, its nobility and beauty, its essential role in economic progress, the reward it offers to successful entrepreneurs in itself when the job is well done – then the tables may be turned, as they should be. In other words, entrepreneurship should then be the driver rather than the driven, and should be a means and an end, rather than merely the former. In this way, maybe unwittingly, new enterprise becomes both a better investment for the venture community and an exit, as it were, unto itself. The chips will fall well where they will.

This was the third in a casual series of unrelated articles. The first two are here and here.

discourse and notes

Category Archives: Books, music, and other recommendations

We can remember it for you wholesale*

This is it

Surviving insularity and the legacy of Steve Jobs

Merchant banking for the age of invention

Other recommendations for you (5): L.A. lit

History and the three cities of media

Entrepreneurship in the movies (3)