Holly Sraeel

How AI firms and investors are funding and backing JD Vance & Trump in order to slash AI regulation. A must read - https://lnkd.in/eu4H9gpK

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It's been... a not very exciting nine months on the #infrastructure #fundraising front, if we're honest. Are things better? Yes, maybe, a little bit. Figures are certainly up on a year-on-year basis. But given ongoing concentration in the asset class, there's a decent chance that 2024 may end up being a worse year than 2023. It will all depend on when some of the mega-funds in market actually reach a final close. For a proper breakdown of the fundraising landscape, head over to Infrastructure Investor and read our Q1-Q3 fundraising report 👇 https://lnkd.in/dUqjvFMt

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"If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it" Ice, V (1990) New Issues is GlobalCapital's new agony uncle column, written by #capitalmarkets veteran and now GC columnist, Craig Coben. If you're in the capital markets and have a professional problem you want Craig to resolve, then write in complete confidentiality to [email protected] Word to your mother https://lnkd.in/ejVgMVDv

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For fintech customers caught in the Synapse collapse, the ball is unfortunately in the bankruptcy court, meaning resolution is likely to be maddeningly slow. But it's hard to ignore the tepid regulatory response to the collapse of Synapse. Fintechs are NOT banks and do not take deposits -- and thus are not insured. Regulators need to do something about this problem. https://lnkd.in/gAJ67tY5  

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The week in impact investing: Political risk. 🗣 ImpactAlpha endorses Kamala Harris. There, we said it. We don’t expect many readers to be surprised about where we stand. We have no illusions about swaying still-undecided voters or tipping swing states. And we appreciate that the impact investing community – our audience and our beat – has long sustained a rare level of bi- or even post-partisanship. Indeed, at last week’s The Global Impact Investing Network's Impact Forum in Amsterdam and this week’s #SOCAP24 gathering in San Francisco, impact leaders largely sidestepped the impending US presidential election, at least in their public comments. In private, many shared shudders of dread before moving back to evergreen topics like climate solutions, sustainable development, diverse representation and systems change. But as the election nears, maintaining that sealed bubble feels at least naive, if not borderline complicit. Certain other publications have zigged away from making endorsements. We’ve chosen to zag: We believe the vice president represents the best choice for keeping open the path toward an impact economy, inclusive prosperity, a just transition and, ultimately, systemic change. Reams have been written about the candidates’ policy planks and party stakes in this election. Lists are being prepared for personnel to be promoted or purged in the various agencies, from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The outcome of the election will have specific implications across the whole range of impact investment priorities and strategies. But the systemic risks of the former guy’s return to power go beyond parties and policies (for a rundown, see Leadership Now’s “US political risk analysis“). https://lnkd.in/gb7SBxTa And even the persecution and prosecution promised by Donald Trump and his proxies is less alarming than the anticipatory obedience of so many supposed leaders. JUST Capital's latest survey suggests Americans overwhelmingly agree executives have a role to play in addressing income inequality, gender and racial equity, and even the ethical use of AI. They are more iffy on CEOs’ responsibility, or perhaps ability, to protect our democracy. In the hopes that we don’t find out too late that the rule of law and the freedom to invest were essential preconditions for positive impact after all, we endorse Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in Tuesday’s election. https://lnkd.in/gpbiP8KN

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Serendipity Literary Agency author Andrea Longton, CFA "The Social Justice Investor" was reviewed by @Timothy J. McClimon in Forbes! Congrats. Andrea! Timothy found the book easy to read and informative for novices and professional social justice investors alike, offering refreshing definitions of popular investment terms, advice on how to broach the topic of social justice investments with your financial partners, and encouraging the reader to do their research and take charge of their investments, while also advising readers to beware of WISC ("Wolf in Sheep's Clothing") investments. https://lnkd.in/eD7nGbxV

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Recently, I blogged about the SEC’s new EDGAR Next, then I shared a number of anecdotes from in-house practitioners who are starting to spot the challenges they will face to comply with the new rules. Here are six things you should be doing now #edgar #corpgov https://lnkd.in/edhQBwp2

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🎉 TGIF! Co-founder Zuleyma Bebell reflects on ImpactAlpha’s 10-year anniversary. Raise a glass. In April of 2014, I was about to give birth to two babies. My first child, Sebastian, was due any minute. And David Bank and I were about to push ImpactAlpha.com live. Having your first-born is hard. So is launching a company. The two experiences have something else in common: If my husband and I had waited for the perfect time, we wouldn’t have the family we have now; if ImpactAlpha had waited for funding, we wouldn’t have the company we have today. In this week’s podcast, David shares some moments from our first decade. After thousands of stories, my son and ImpactAlpha are both turning 10. Another lesson from both parenting and building a business: just keep going. All of our kids have grown up with ImpactAlpha, and given us an appreciation of what has come to be called “child lens investing.” In The Brief this week, Essma Bengabsia of the Annie E. Casey Foundation highlights impact investments to fix a broken child care system by helping providers build facilities and parents find day care. Kids also need renewable energy, affordable housing and racial equity, as W.K. Kellogg Foundation's  Cynthia Muller points out in her reflections on lessons learned from the foundation’s $310 million in mission-driven investments. Builders Vision's Bruce McNamer sees family offices as crucial in funding the climate transition. We’re looking forward to seeing all of these contributors and partners at the Mission Investors Exchange conference. Amy Cortese had reports on Solar For All and the steep learning curve for community lenders that are leveraging the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. James McIntyre has a compelling proposal to green down payment assistance to create better homes and better mortgages. Louie Woodall dissected the debate over carbon credits that has roiled the Science Based Targets Initiative. Dennis Price keyed in on the “alpha in impact” opportunity in helping reintegrate citizens returning from prison, now visible in FreeCap Financial, Inc’s new “decarceration index.” And we’re watching the impact of AI and the investment in Anthropic by Omidyar Network, Ford Foundation and Nathan Cummings Foundation, which guest authors Lyel Resner and Dr. Wilneida Negrónsee as a signal of impact investor interest in responsible tech innovation. From baby steps, we’ve learned to walk, with the help of Agents of Impact who have filled ImpactAlpha with their innovation, energy and commitment. We’ve grown up, as have many of you, alongside the idea that it’s possible to optimize finance for better outcomes for our kids and for all of us. We’re grateful to be able to play a role in that growth alongside this idea that it’s possible to optimize finance for better outcomes for our kids and for all of us. We’re humbled by the trust you’ve placed in us. https://lnkd.in/gHNM7Bss

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In today's Morning Risk Report: How Morgan Stanley courted dodgy customers to build a wealth-management empire, and what Trump’s new tariff threats mean for the U.S. economy. Plus, bitcoin is surging, and the IRS is watching closer than ever. https://lnkd.in/esZyYkP4

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I just published With Abraham to Unity: Vocation, Fidelity and Contemporary Discipline https://lnkd.in/d-qErZ-b | #Abraham | #vocation | #faithfulness | #unity | #JesusChrist | #contemporarytimes | #religiouspsychology | #biblicalanalysis | #prayer |

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This was a fascinating, occasionally intense, and quite personal conversation with David Nassar and Samuel Kimbriel over at the Templeton Ideas podcast. I really enjoyed it. We talked about why I do what I do (for better or worse), my "first principles," and how to disagree well. For those who prefer reading, a full transcript is also available below. https://lnkd.in/gnyvKfPe

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It's here! Now in its fourth year, Business Insider's Seed 100 illuminates the most successful and high-potential early-stage startup investors. These are not just check-writers but shrewd risk-takers, enthusiastic collaborators, and trend forecasters. They are on the front lines, locking arms with visionary founders to transform ideas into full-fledged businesses, often putting money and support behind those builders before others see the opportunity. This year saw the return of a familiar face at the top (Ed Sim), alongside 36 newcomers, including Anne Dwane, Zal Bilimoria, Nikhil Basu Trivedi, Ryan Hoover, and Josh Kopelman. For her list debut, I spoke to solo capitalist Shruti Gandhi about how she's returned her maiden fund and scored 15 exits in the past five years: https://lnkd.in/e8xMbPqv Each year, as soon as we publish this list, I get a barrage of emails asking, "How can we get our investor on the list?" Our statistical analysis looks at an investor's performance in 25 areas using PitchBook and Crunchbase data. So if an investor isn't getting deal attributions on those sites, they're not included in our data set. We can't rank what we can't measure. You can read our full methodology here: https://lnkd.in/e3RsMj4K Massive kudos to Vishal Persaud for managing this project, our designers Annie F. and Jenny Chang-Rodriguez, our illustrator Nick Little, and our reporters Ben Bergman, Leena Rao, Samantha Stokes, and Rebecca Torrence. https://lnkd.in/evCqpHcP

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Following up on this Part 1, these eight things can help you understand what “transparency” is – and isn’t #corpgov #transparency https://lnkd.in/eBUjnF8S

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New review by Zachary Shore of Andrew J. Bacevich's _On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century_. https://lnkd.in/dkEcDV67 "If you ever worry that America is being run by a bumbling mass of venal nincompoops, or fret that American society is slouching toward self-destruction, Andrew Bacevich’s collected essays will provide ample fodder for your fears. _On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century_ is not a work of scholarship, but rather a compilation of learned opinions. Bacevich peppers his pieces with a sprinkle of sarcasm and a dash of venomous invective, pulling no punches, barbs, or jibes as he excoriates the United States’ institutions, most notably its military, media, and political elites. Unfortunately, he has no shortage of material, and not just regarding President Donald Trump, a 'bozo of such monumental proportions as to tax the abilities of our most talented satirists' (129). Bacevich himself might qualify for membership in that club of humorists. When discussing the efforts to impeach the former president, he quips that replacing Trump with Vice President Mike Pence is 'the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo' (304). But Trump is just the lowest hanging fruit. The author reaches much deeper. Bacevich’s primary concern is with the eight-decade-old paradigm of America as the 'indispensable nation,' a notion he views as dangerously obsolete. As he sees it, a self-reproducing cadre of foreign policy gurus, sometimes called 'the Blob,' has convinced itself that US military dominance and overseas meddling are requirements of a stable world order, one that largely benefits the US. Although this notion does nothing to aid average Americans, it preserves the status of the establishment."

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Here we go again. AI powered misinformation and disinformation impacting the elections. We've covered AI's role in politics since 2016, with each election cycle expanding the scope and raising the stakes. A newsletter and podcast episode for November 5. You'll learn about the AI foot soldiers of misinformation -- bots, cyborgs, deepfakes, shallow fakes, sock puppets. Then comes the interesting part, which is a dive into the neuroscience and craft for getting people to believe BS. https://lnkd.in/gHBZk4jZ

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25 or 50? That is the only thing that matters to investors this week. Will the Fed opt for a 25- or 50-basis-point cut when their two-day policy meeting ends on Wednesday (18 September 2024). The market now seems to welcome a bigger cut than last week, though a 50bps cut could also imply that the Fed do think that there is something about the economy that is worth worrying about... and they have missed the window for a 25bps cut. Some may read it as their way of regret management. Read more about this in my story in Lianhe Zaobao 联合早报 via the link below. https://lnkd.in/gmgmR2vE

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Anthropic really has gained a lot over OpenAI, especially I'd argue in the appeal to Enterprises and medium to large businesses and even small businesses. In terms of frontier models and ease of use, Artifacts is also fairly practical and will come to teams soon. This means Claude 3.5 will gain even more momentum as it outperforms GPT-4o. While OpenAI has focused on "bells and whistles" and product diversification, for most people, the casual or business owner user, those use cases aren't useful or helpful and don't solve real world problems. Anthropic has also carefully prioritized trust and saftey, for this reason for B2B, it's recommended. I wanted to cover the basics of what Claude 3.5 Sonnet means for the frontier model landscape with the announcement. Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet is a Major Advancement in Frontier Models 🎯 I think we can say Anthropic is one of the big stories in Generative AI of 2024 now: https://lnkd.in/gSEYr2CW

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Ditch the pitch! 'We keep trying to jam our funds into allocators portfolios with 20 charts, 30 slides, and in 60 minutes or less,' writes Stacy Havener for Citywire Selector's fund distribution newsletter this week. 'There is a way out...' Presenting is killing your sale, she argues, instead think about: 🧙‍♂️ Storytelling 🙉 Listening 🦄 USPs Read the latest in our ongoing series on improving your sales craft to discover three ways to transform client meetings. #funddistribution #pitching #assetmanagement https://lnkd.in/d_SKAB9P

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