Introduction In the summer of 2020, an insurance company called Lemonade went public at a $1.6 billion valuation. On the very first day, the share price doubled, bringing the market cap to over $3 billion. Using a digital-first platform powered by artificial intelligence, Lemonade promised… Read More »Lemonade Insurance: Did AI Disrupt Insurance or Just Hype?
Peter Thiel How does someone become a billionaire? The most popular option is to start a company, maintain as much equity as you can, and scale the business to the moon. This is precisely what all of the most famous billionaires did, including Jeff Bezos,… Read More »From Law Dropout to Billionaire: The Story of Peter Thiel’s Investment Strategy
Is it all just marketing? In 2023, Red Bull sold one and a half cans for every person on the planet. That’s more than 12 billion cans per year. Red Bull does much more than selling an energy drink. They own two Formula 1 teams,… Read More »From Energy Drinks to Football Domination: The Red Bull Football Model
American Brands For most industries and products, becoming commoditized and being shipped overseas is the last stage of innovation. It’s when an innovative product, whether that be cars, TVs, or computers, becomes so mainstream and so good that the only way to continue innovating and… Read More »The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of American Computer Brands
The Motorola Disaster Remember Motorola? At one point, they were selling network equipment, signal amplifiers, and even digital video recorders. But, likely the product that they’re most well known for is cell phones and particularly this one: the Motorola Razr. Back in the early 2000s,… Read More »Google’s Motorola Acquisition: A Billion Dollar Blunder or Brilliant Move?
The Incredible Economics of Chess This might be the most interesting Instagram ad ever. But not because of what you think. It’s not Messi and Ronaldo. It’s also not the secret hidden message that the board position is from a real game. The most interesting… Read More »Checkmate! How Chess Became the Fastest-Growing Sport on Youtube
Introduction The spa Mania of 2020 and 2021 was truly a once-in-a-generation spectacle to behold. Hundreds of questionable companies were able to raise hundreds of billions of dollars based on dubious business plans and financial projections. Today, almost all that money has disappeared. In today’s… Read More »Virgin Galactic: A Race Against Time? Will Space Tourism Ever Be Viable?
Bernabeu’s facelift This is the new Santiago Bernabeu, the Stadium of Real Madrid, one of the biggest football clubs in the world. It just got a 1 billion dollar facelift. Wrapped in steel that can be lit up from underneath to show moving images, it… Read More »From Football Field to Money Machine: How Real Madrid’s New Bernabeu Generates Revenue
Curiosity Stream’s IPO and Content Offerings In 2020, a video streaming company called Curiosity Stream went public by merging with a SPAC. They created thousands of non-fiction documentaries about nature, science, and technology. It appealed to science geeks who, for the low price of just… Read More »Is Curiosity Stream Doomed? Why They Pay Dividends Despite Losing Money