Researching pensive spending and public market accountability a la Bill Gurley

Well, venture capital is the focal point of today's story. Bill Gurley is an experienced venture capitalist at Benchmark Capital, a renowned private capital firm in San Francisco. Bill is a general partner at Benchmark, and he has his own weblog called 'Above The Crowd.' For Bill, he likes to be an well known supporter of pensive spending and public market accountability. This train of thought is quite different than one of the companies that he invested in. The company that G. Ripley described is Uber. Bill was on the board of directors of Uber, a highly valued start up. Recently, Uber has come under fire as Travis Kalanick resigned from the popular ride sharing company. Kalanick held the CEO position for quite some time, but Gurley was instrumental in calling for the resignation of Kalanick. Back to Gurley's current roles, He left the board of directors at Uber a few weeks ago. During his tenure on the Uber board, Bill led the company in a behind the scenes fashion. He steered the popular ride sharing firm, even though the company dealt with widespread fallout from accusations of misconduct and sexual harassment. Bill G. is not too enthusiastic of Uber's self driving car strategy. Uber had a market cap. of $69 billion at one point, but it will not follow through on an IPO in 2017. Outside of Uber, Gurley is on the board of directors at some of the following companies: Ubiquiti Networks; Zillow.com; OpenTable; and Grubhub. Also, one should go to www.abovethecrowd.com to read Gurley's blog. Before working at Benchmark, Gurley was a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. These days, you can find Bill on the various social networks a la Twitter; Facebook; Linkedin etc. Some of Bill's big investments were Snap, Instagram, and NextDoor. Snap went public in 2017, but the company's stock price is under the IPO price already. Instagram was acquired by Facebook. NextDoor is the neighborhood social network in LA; Phoenix; and other highly populated cities in America. Finally, Bill is extremely tall as he is 81 inches above the ground. That is 6 ft. 9 in. for all those math experts, unlike myself. Bill received an undergrad. degree from University of Florida, and an MBA from UT Austin. He owns homes in Atherton, and Truckee, CA. Benchmark Capital invested a small amount ($5 million) in Ebay, back in 1997. Today, Ebay counts as one of Gurley's investment hits. Investing in startups continues to give good rates of return, for Gurley. One of his latest investments was in Zipcar, which is a subsidiary of Avis Budget Group now. In closing, Bill Gurley has been writing or 'blogging' for more than two decades. This feat is remarkable for the author of this post, to digest as G. Ripley wonders 'How does Bill find the time to write, when he invests in many successful startups?' Gurley can be wrong about investments, like jet.com. He is an outspoken critic, that is recognized by the likes of Marc Andreessen and Roger McNamee. Andreessen is a current partner at Andreessen Horowitz, another popularly successful VC firm. McNamee is a founding partner of Elevation Partners. Roger is one of the oldest, venerable VCs in silicon valley. As my writing for this post comes to an end, may the reader have gathered a monolithic amount of useful information on venture capital and Bill Gurley. Enjoy the photo above of a pensive man talking about public markets, and useful technological products. The man is the talented Mr. Bill Gurley.

Teen retail industry is turning into 'impulse' buy for all shoppers. Buying one of everything is in!

Today's teen shoppers are changing the retail landscape in many ways. First, the teen retail industry is one in which people are buying products from more than one brand. No consumer is buying Abercrombie and Fitch shirts or jeans only, as shoppers want to buy Express or Urban Outfitters clothes also. The big companies in this retail space are Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, Urban Outfitters, and Express. Yet, each company's shares on the stock market are down by more than 10% YTD. The retail industry insiders are having trouble with predicting any shoppers behavior these days, regardless of age. If you start from generation X and move into the 2010 decade, people are moving from shopping at a huge mall/fashion center to buying all clothing online. Isn't it better to buy a product that you can touch and feel, as opposed to clicking 'buy' on amazon.com or other e-commerce websites? The answer to that probing question is a hard 'no.' Consumers are fickle, and their wardrobe may consist of clothing from many stores. Next, let's look at store closings in the retail industry. Abercrombie and Fitch has shut down dozens of stores for having underperforming sales. Aeropostale, Wet Seal, and BCBG Max Azria have sought bankruptcy protection. Sears has shut down 43 stores this year. Where are the retail consumers going to buy clothes these days? Lower-cost, fast-fashion stores like H&M and Forever 21 are the places that teens and young adults make clothing transactions. Express and Urban Outfitters are forecasting huge decreases in 2nd quarter same-store sales. Finally, Abercrombie & Fitch was up for sale in May/June 2017. Express and American Eagle were in major discussions to complete the takeover. But, Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF:NYSE) took itself off the market. The company must devise their own growth revival strategy, in order to survive. As a closing statement, The great recession (November 2007 to July 2009) altered the retail landscape. Now, more than 85 million Americans are paid members of Amazon Prime. This statistic is up more than 38% from this time in 2016. In the next year or two, the retail industry could signal a massive decline for more brick and mortar stores. Until then, enjoy the picture above of a cute family decked out in H&M blue clothes. Matching colors is the way to go!