Michael Butler is chairman and CEO of investment bank Cascadia Capital. He is writing a book titled Financing the Future and the Next Wave of 21st Century Innovation, and is serializing it here at peHUB. What follows is an excerpt from the eighth chapter. It’s been nearly 30 years since Ronald Reagan tore down the […]
It’s been a bit since I’ve posted a Law Firm 2.0 post. Most of the reason has been that I’m still getting a ton of inbound calls and emails from lawyers telling me that I’m onto something here and they want to add their two cents to further refine my thinking. I’ll have several more […]
The lead NY Times editorial last Sunday, had a stern warning against relaxing ownership rules for private equity investing in commercial banks. Let me suggest why this is a misplaced warning. The current state of play is that ownership of 25% or more of a federally regulated bank subjects the owner to being deemed a […]
Given all the free publicity in this publication for The Dutch Goose during the past week, The Oasis Beer Garden in Menlo Park must be feeling a bit like John McCain. Much in the way Kansas Citians categorize themselves by asking the simple question “Gates or Bryants?”, resident of (and travelers to) the Silicon Valley […]
Michael Butler is chairman and CEO of investment bank Cascadia Capital. He is writing a book titled Financing the Future and the Next Wave of 21st Century Innovation, and is serializing it here at peHUB. What follows is an excerpt from the fifth chapter. The Big Guns have been weighing in on the state of […]
There’s a great riff in John McWhorter’s book, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language that describes how expressive force in language diminishes over time. His poster child is the word “terrible” which once meant “causing dread or fear or terror,” but now is used as a mild negative modifier (e.g., “I’m such […]
There is a controversy brewing in the world of government grant money to start-ups that is trickling into the VC community. The Small Business Association (SBA) of the US government administers Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) provides grants to small businesses (defined as fewer than 500 employees) to the […]
There is no denying that our Boston is a winning town. Since last year, John Henry’s Red Sox won another World Series title… we are now leading the Yankees 2-0 in world championships during this Millennium, the Patriots were one Asante Samuel missed interception away from winning another Super Bowl and Red Auerbach’s smoky ghost […]
Anyone following the open source phenomenon can’t help but be amazed at what appears to be volunteerism on a massive scale for corporate gain. Almost every company in the world has some strands of open source code floating around their company. Whether it is the Linux operating system, Apache web server, the IP protocol or […]
Fareed Zakaria’s new book on post-American world order is a fascinating read. I won’t speak to the political ramifications of the new world order that Zakaria outlines, but I was struck by the one important element of America’s lingering contribution to the world that he seems to have missed: entrepreneurship. In an era where the […]