Not all of the worlds infrastructural problems can be solved by the UN. Social Entrepreneurship initiatives help to create self dependance for individuals in targeted areas, whereas the UN does not guarantee security and can actually leave these places worse off in some cases. Even if fully funded, the UN takes diplomacy, time and is subject to conflict of interest for some countries, potentially compromising the entire organization. Initiatives like the Arc Initiative actually teaches individuals how to survive rather than depend. A Social Enterprise is essentially for profit or not for profit business with a social mission.

The UN also works to maintain international peace and security, develop relations among nations, solve international problems, promote respect for human rights and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations.  While the UN targets societal issues, war and natural disasters, they tend to miss infrastructural poverty issues that are carried out by Social Entrepreneurship initiatives.

While both the UN and Social Entrepreneurship initiatives are noble, Social Entrepreneurship and micro-financing help create and follow through with realistic expectations in achieving self sufficiency.

As the old saying goes: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

William Latu’s Blog post touched on the nature of the former CEO of Tinder, Sean Rad’s demotion as well as how the takeover was possible.

One subject that Latu touched on was tech incubators and their role, aiding in the startup process.  I believe tech incubators are a new facet to give entrepreneurs the means and capital to create their startup. With access to funding and some intangible benefits, a tech incubator creates a cohesive environment in the development of a startup or even growth of an already existing one.  Perhaps one of the best things about incubators is they can take someone with an idea and absolutely no knowledge of business and guide and teach them how to bring their idea to market.  Some notable startups that were started in tech incubators are: Reddit, Pebble and Dropbox to name a few.

Taken from:http://blog.up.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/tumblr_lvjcxhMnM71qc7mh1.jpg

While this whole process does limit ownership, it also allows a product to be created here it normally would not have been.  Sean Rad only owns a 10% share in his company due to his involvement in a tech incubator.  I think what he gave up was worth it because without Hatch Labs, there is no telling where he would be right now.

I am writing in response to Mark Suster’s “The Case for Optimism and Risk at Startups“.  Suster posted a brief story about a skeptic who spoke out against a company (uBeam) that he backed and delved into the different roles played in a startup. While the true nature of the post could have been to show solidarity towards uBeam and disprove the scepticism against it, the defined roles in a startup that followed his story had a particular interest to me.

It defined the role of an entrepreneur as those willing to abandon the comfort and security of a job with a salary while striving to pursue their passions in the face of failure.  The blog post went on to further explain how an entrepreneur has to be an optimist who is okay with being subject to pessimistic remarks of nay-sayers and backbenchers and willing to fight tooth and nail for what they believe in.

In previous posts, I have spoken about my interest in entrepreneurship.  I truly admire entrepreneurs and hope to one day be able to call myself one.

Suster’s parting words stayed with me:

Taken Fromhttp://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2014/11/05/the-case-for-optimism-and-risk-at-startups/

No matter the intention of the article, I stand by Mark Suster and agree that remarks from onlookers do not determine the fate of a company, but the ideas and minds that carry them out do.

Around one month ago, Katie Applebaum wrote a blog post about the importance of a recording studio that caters to the “middle class” of musicians, who are serious about pursuing careers in the industry, but do not have the money to break into it. She gave the example of Monarch Studios who offers an aesthetic studio with high end equipment and expertise at a relatively low and affordable cost.

While I agree with Katie about the importance of Monarch Studios, I disagree with her about the effect that piracy and music apps have on up and coming artists.  In a recent Comm 101 class, I had the opportunity to hear from the owner of Monarch Studios, Tom Dobrzanski about his views on piracy.  He said that while piracy negatively impacts big names in the music industry, it can help create band awareness in a “middle class” band that is trying to break into the industry – his clientele.  As for music sharing apps such as  Spotify, 8tracks and Pandora,  artists can register through these apps and create a hype for themselves as well as make some profit.  For example, the profit that Spotify actually earns is divided into ~30% by Spotify and ~70% by the Rights Holders of these songs.

Taken from http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained

(PC Mag)

With over 5.7 million donors funding more than 135 000 projects, Kickstarter is responsible for a boom in the startup scene, raising over 1 billion dollars.  Be it a personal project, a technological innovation, or a big screen movie, Kickstarter has helped ideas grow and reach people of all walks of life.  While it has helped many people bring their ideas to fruition, it also creates unrealistic expectations from donors.

People donate to projects they are passionate about, for little in return, on the premise that a final product will be delivered. However, the majority of projects did not meet their set delivery deadlines in 2012 begging the question does Kickstarter create vapourware.  The reason that these Startups did not meet their delivery deadlines was because of overfunding by donors.  By being overfunded, these companies had a demand for their product that they could not keep up with.  This, in turn, leads to vapourware in the most successful startups  because these products are announced to the general public, but never actually manufactured or officially canceled. One way this effect can be minimized is by having set funding caps replace a fixed fundraising goal, with the implementation of a range of funding goals (raise a minimum of x and a maximum of y).

In the past couple months, First Nations rights to land have become more and more prevalent in the media. With the issue of preservation of natural resources taking the lead, private companies like the Taseko Mining Company has been hindered.  The First Nation influence has been far reaching and has had authority over companies even outside of their technical land control.  While they ban the mass clear cutting and destruction of natural resources on the land, they support sufficient means to achieving these natural resources on a smaller scale, leading to jobs for native First Nations.

First Nations have once again made headlines in the past few days with land deals within Vancouver involving development through their zoning laws.  Profit stands to even be made through these deals in commercial and residential developments.  Ultimately, First Nations were able to manage environmentally harmful companies in BC, leading to cutbacks, management and restructuring, while benefiting their people with jobs, land preservation and development.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Unilateral+park+declared+Tsilhqot+includes+Prosperity+mine/10192766/story.htmlhttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/land-development-deal-with-bc-first-nations-launches-new-era/article20939100/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/land-development-deal-with-bc-first-nations-launches-new-era/article20939100/

Last year, Microsoft bought its’ way into the NFL in a $400 million five-year partnership and sponsorship.  This risky deal gives exclusive content to X-box One users and much exposure to “Surface” Tablets.  Every team is equipped with bright blue tablets for use by coaches and players on the sidelines. With over 21 million views per week in the NFL, this deal is sure to attract many new users.  Due to how big this deal is in nature, it has creating quite a bit of buzz, which can be seen as free advertising to go along with the deal.  However, recently many announcers have foolishly mistaken the Microsoft Tablet as iPads which is a problem for both Microsoft and Apple.

This is problematic for Microsoft for obvious reasons- they invested $400 million just to have their brand mistaken for the leading tablet.  For Apple however, this is not necessarily a good thing.  The confusion in the NFL is an example of widespread trademark erosion toward the iPad throughout North America.  Trademark erosion is when a trademark name is used so often that it becomes commonly used to describe a product (Microsoft tablets being called iPads even though they are bright blue), this can result in the trademark name becoming unregistered.

Prior to the season, Microsoft and the NFL struck a five-year $400 million deal with one of the major components being that the Microsoft Surface would become “the official tablet of the NFL” with coaches and players using the Surface on the sidelines during games.

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/nfl

http://mashable.com/2014/09/16/oskar-groening-groning-nazi-auschwitz-guard/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedly&utm_reader=feedly
Oskar Gröning is a former Nazi death camp guard who is currently facing trial in Germany.  Gröning (now 93) has been charged with 300 000 counts of accessary to murder.  The trial has highlighted what some see as the failure of German judiciary in bringing Holocaust perpetrators to justice. Out of the 6,500 SS members who worked at Auschwitz and survived the war, only 49 have ever been convicted.  The fact that Germany is cracking down now, when most who were involved at the time are in there nineties, seems like it is too little too late.

A major problem with putting these former Nazi officers on trial is questioning the degree of their guilt. For example, since his involvement in Auschwitz, Gröning has been one of the few former Nazi’s to speak out about what he did against Holocaust deniers. Some elected to become SS Guards based on their own free will and some only did it out of fear.  The main legal difficulty is in defining individual guilt.  It is very difficult to link specific murders to specific people involved, when they happened so long ago.

 “Accomplice would almost be too much for me. I would describe my role as a small cog in the gears. If you can describe that as guilt, then I am guilty, but not voluntarily. Legally speaking, I am innocent.”- Oskar Gröning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/payday-lender-ace-cash-express-fined-over-abusive-debt-collection-practices/2014/07/10/04e9fa08-0858-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html

The multi-billion dollar payday loan industry is one of America’s most prevalent. So what exactly is a payday loan? The definition of a payday loan is: “A relatively small amount of money lent at a high rate of interest on the agreement that it will be repaid when the borrower receives their next pay-check”- essentially, legal loan sharking. What makes this industry so successful – and unethical – is that their business model is dependent on the majority of its’ customers not being able to pay back their loan.

The image above describes a step-by-step process involving a customer receiving a loan and not being able to pay it back, forcing them to take out another loan, increasing annual interest rates. This is the result for a staggering 74% of customers at Payday loan stores world-wide, which explains why the average annual percentage rate on payday loans in the U.S. Ranges from 196% to 574% depending on the state. Ultimately, the payday loan industry is a great contributor to economic disparity and essentially does much more harm than good.

References:
http://www.businessinsider.com/outrageous-facts-about-payday-loans-2013-10

Related:
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21588080-labour-party-launches-attack-payday-lenders-it-may-be-too-late-shark-bait

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/02/27/payday-loan-companies-in-government-crosshairs/?__federated=1