We love what we do, so ClearCreek writes and publishes pieces for a somewhat irregular blog about emerging companies and the capital markets (subscribe: here). Any errors are ours exclusively while the occasional sharp insight is probably borrowed. We hope you find them of interest, and we always welcome feedback.
Betting, as the saying goes, is a tax on bullshit. Opinions are easy — you can have as many as you choose, often crowding contradictorily around the same topic. But a wager where there is something significant to be gained or lost tends to filter out all but the most serious perspectives…
Read MoreOver the summer, The Economist magazine published independent pieces on six big economic ideas that changed the world (or at least modern finance). These have now been collected into a a single brief…
Read MoreNews junkies everywhere know that it is the best of times, as news is presented in various forms through a multitude of channels, often in real time — but fear the worst of times, as the implosion of the former monolith of print news threatens the existence of journalism as a profession…
Read MoreQuick – to aptly recognize Labor Day, everyone go update their LinkedIn profiles. You won’t be alone: LinkedIn membership has tripled in the past three years and now stands at about 315 million professionals, of whom two-thirds live outside the United States…
Read MoreAs comfortable as an Uber ride is, it sure seems to cause a lot of distress. Recently protests against Uber rolled Europe, even as the company was flexing its muscle with an $1.2 billion capital raise at a valuation in excess of $18 billion. Uber’s international expansion has been remarkable…
Read MoreThe ceaseless flow of information and data running through most businesses now has made it easier to spot big trends, but also threatens to wash over smaller pieces of critical information. But increasingly, it is these small snippets of data that carry important insights…
Read More2013 in a word? According to at least one economist it was: Bitcoin – a secure peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency created in 2009. New Bitcoins are mined by software programmers, and although users can remain anonymous, central to the system is a public database and sequential record of all transactions,,,
Read MoreWearables — electronic devices attached to the body in some way — are generating some serious buzz, capturing imaginations with visions of science fiction coming to life. Although wearables have been on the market in some form or another since a complex and miniature abacus was attached to a ring in the Qing dynasty…
Read MorePaying your friends back for spotting you with some cash just got really, really easy. With nothing more than an email, Square Cash (from the makers of Square) allows friends and family to send small amounts of money directly to one another’s bank accounts via email…
Read MoreThe insightful Tyler Cowen has studied the way technology can radically change a wide variety of industries — how smart machines might displace human beings. But rather than focus on the typical piece predicting the future of work, Cowen penned an intriguing Op-Ed which tries to imagine…
Read MoreAs anyone who has tried to build an app knows, creating something that not only engages users, but hooks them — getting them coming back multiple times, day after day — is no simple task. When one of these apps appear, ease of use and addictive features mean they take off like wildfire…
Read MoreOne of the potential revolutions that has most captivated the public — especially since we are still waiting for our jetpacks — are cars without drivers. From the Batmobile, to Christine, to Das Hoff, the days when a self-driving vehicle answers our call are soon coming. Indeed, Google’s driverless cars have already traveled over a quarter million miles,…
Read MoreDisruptive technology is often seen as binary: you are or you are not. However, it’s more often a matrix: a technology can be anywhere from slightly to very disruptive to a user base that also varies in size. Even a small disruption in a large industry can ripple into a sizable wave…
Read MoreLike many people, we are big fans of startup communities. We’d like to think that the benefits of these groups, and their economic and social impact, is self-evident. But we’re even bigger fans of contrarian reasoning, and having one’s beliefs challenged is thought-provoking, so this post naturally caught our eye…
Read MoreIn this month’s five best blogs we are going all Venture Capital: start with some great startups whose ideas seemed absurd at the time, then check out six myths about venture capital — which might help, since some people believe there are now fewer than 100 tech VCs still investing,…
Read MoreIn 1998 Netflix was formed with a simple idea: rent DVDs by mail under a subscriber model: no late fees, and you don’t have to leave your house. The company went public in 2002 with annual revenues north of $75 million. The virtual model was one originally embraced by the marketplace…
Read MoreOne of the great entrepreneurial success stories that is rarely given its due is ESPN. Explaining to today’s college students that the world once existed without 24-hour sports television is akin to the evolutionary disbelief in the fossilized existence of a tethered telephone…
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