Finance Trends Letter

  High profile Valley startup founders Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman (of Paypal/Facebook and LinkedIn, respectively) discuss innovation in Silicon Valley, the coming mobile economy, and their greatest hits and misses in this Forbes video interview. Related posts : 1. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel on entrepreneurship and creativity . 2. Mark Cuban: How to Get Rich + Success and Motivation .  3. Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippy (BBC documentary) .

Mike Bellafiore of SMB Capital talks with MSN about humans vs. algos and the future of trading .  A few notable quotes and points from Bella's interview:  1 . Bella and his traders don't look at the current environment as " man vs. machine ".  Instead, they trade around the computers. Most of the advantage that "black box" programs or algorithms have are based on micro-scalping, trading for sub-penny moves. SMB Capital traders have changed their methods, extended their trading time frames, and are adapting to the current market structure. 2 . Play your own game. As Mike says, " Do your own thing , let the computers do their thing. Don't play that [computer's] game. Play a game that trades on a longer time frame. Find the trades that work for you." 3 . On the large percentage of daily trading volume on US markets that is high-frequency trading (HFT) or machine-based:  "We used to have market makers and they don't exi

Steve Jobs' brilliant life and entrepreneurial career are profiled in this BBC documentary, " Steve Jobs - Billion Dollar Hippy ".  Today is a big media day for Apple, given the hype surrounding the release of the new iPhone 5. A fine time to look back on the Silicon Valley landscape of the 1970s and the counterculture and tech hobbyist environments which inspired Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to start their own little computer company (now valued at over $600 billion dollars , market cap).  This is a great overview of Jobs' rise and fall at Apple, his entries into the realms of interpersonal computing and filmmaking at NeXT and Pixar, and his triumphant return to Apple that kickstarted its reinvention as a design-focused electronics company.  Enjoy the video, and check out our related items below for more on Steve Jobs and the tech revolution. Related posts :  1. Steve Jobs PBS interview from 1990, rarely seen . 2. Interview: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at

Marc Faber offers some forecasts for the global economy in this recent Dubai hedge funds world conference video.  Faber makes 2 important points at the outset of this talk. First, he notes that at the start of his career (1970) investment banks were all private partnerships. Not a one was a publicly traded corporation, whereas today most large banks are listed corporations. As a result, the risk profile at investment banks has completely changed from the days when partners at investment banks were personally liable for other people's mistakes. Today, bankers risk other people's money and face no real consequences for their mistakes. In fact, they are often bailed out with taxpayer funds when they go bust. Secondly, Marc points out that the (neo-) Keynesians want to make interventions in the capitalist economy and "smooth out" the business cycle with fiscal and monetary measures.  In Faber's view, these interventions have actually made fluctuations i

Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX) and Peter Thiel (PayPal, Facebook, Palantir) discuss entrepreneurship, capitalism, creativity, the educational system, and their own experiences building innovative companies in these PandoMonthly interviews.