Misguided
In 2020, I’ll likely recommend reading Morgan Housel’s new book.
Other than that, I can’t predict much else for the next year or decade.
The Verge published a summary of the 84 biggest tech flops of this past decade, including the fall of BlackBerry, née Research in Motion, at number 18:
“At the start of the decade, BlackBerry was on top of the world. Even as the iPhone turned five, BlackBerry-owner Research in Motion had record subscribers and its iconic PDA-style cell phones were still the must-have gadgets of teenagers, business executives, and celebrities alike. But within months of its all-time subscriber high of more than 80 million in the summer of 2012, everything started to unravel. The iPhone 4S had been released the year prior, and Apple’s iOS was adding new features at a rapid clip, while Google’s Android operating system started catching on globally.
Instead of focusing on its strengths, BlackBerry instead released an alarming and inexplicable series of misguided products. From the PlayBook tablet that shipped without an email client to the disastrous BlackBerry 10 OS, the company released one embarrassing flop after another in pretty much every product category imaginable. Even when BlackBerry went back to basics, like with the physical keyboard on the Android-powered Priv, the company realized far too late in the game that it was never going to catch up to Apple and Google. The BlackBerry brand is best known now as a footnote in the history of mobile computing.”
Today, the stock market in the United States fell a bit as money managers and maybe even individual investors sold their losers for tax-loss harvesting.
In this quiet month, I got to learn about the under-the-radar Cross River Bank:
“Cross River is not a typical community bank. There are no tellers here, or ATMs or safe deposit boxes. Instead, there are 175 bank staffers and traders stuffed elbow to jowl into about 23,000 square feet, peering into hundreds of computer monitors — often stacked three per desk. There are startup touches — a kitchenette stocked with LaCroix sparkling water, gourmet coffee and a game room.
Cross River is on a lending tear. It is underwriting loans at the rate of more than $1 billion a month — some $30 billion worth in just nine years. But unlike in banks of yesteryear, virtually all Cross River’s lending officers aren’t human beings. They are apps. Cross River’s loans originate mostly from 15 or so buzzy venture-capital-backed financial technology startups, so-called FinTechs, that go by names like Affirm, Best Egg, Upgrade, Upstart, and LendingUSA. The FinTechs provide the customers; Cross River provides the licenses and infrastructure. It holds 10% to 20% of each loan it issues, and the massive volume of FinTech loans has propelled Cross River to $2 billion in assets, up from $100 million a decade ago.”
Right now, a surprising number of apps on my Pixel 3 ($GOOGL), which is not a BlackBerry nor an Apple ($AAPL) are financial ones: Cash ($SQ), Coinbase, Credit Karma, Nerd Wallet, PayPal, Venmo ($PYPL), among others.
To their credit, I like them and they prove useful.
But I’m also halfway through Bethany McLean’s All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis and financial lending is the antagonist:
In Act 1, Scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the magic spirit Ariel proclaims, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
Whenever the next recession or crisis hits your backyard, there will be bad players and worse decision-makers involved.
On the other hand, the next startup stars might still brighten our future:
“AI-powered toilets. Iron Manesque exoskeletons. Robot furniture. VR-based offices. Actual dream-recording machines. If these all sound crazy and futuristic, well, that’s because they are! And yet, what if the technology behind many of these is more science than science fiction?
A16z Operating Partner Frank Chen takes us on a tour of what daily life could look like in 2030 and beyond — and what innovations in both technology and business model need to happen to get us there. He can’t promise flying cars (yet), but the future might be closer than we think.”
I have no hot take on what tomorrow may bring or the next day and decade.
So, I’ll borrow what may be the last line of Morgan Housel’s book:
“But to each their own. No one is crazy.”
Actually, maybe a line from Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love is better:
“You play to your strengths, pal. That’s all any of us can do.”
Good luck!
