Peak America? Peak Internet Freedom? Peak Lindzon?

ByHoward Lindzon american, apple, boston, chinese, facebook, iceland, king, london, network, restaurant, share Comments Off

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As confident as I am in the social revolution and boom….I worry about all of the above in the title as I travel for a month talking to Stocktwits customers.

Fun facts about global markets at this point in time:

1. The US markets are at all-time highs (software and biotech continue to lead)

2. Oil has dropped below $80/barrel for the first time in years. Restaurant, retail and consumer good stocks are rocketing.

3. Apple has a larger market capitalization than all of Russia’s stock market.

4. Alibaba and Baidu (I am long $BIDU in the SL50) are the first two Chinese companies I call ‘Too Big to Cheat’ (I am sure they cheat as much as American companies but do not need to cheat as much as all other Chinese companies).

5. Federal Express, founded in 1971, is now just 2 times larger in market capitalization than UBER.

6. Microsoft has passed Google and Exxon becoming the second largest company in America. Nobody in MY network, except my pal Cole Wilcox who got me long last at 2013 Stocktoberfest, saw Microsoft coming.

7. The telecoms around the world….BLOW! I don’t know where to begin, but for some context of how much control they have over our lives and countries, just AT&T and Verizon book $250 billion a year in sales. The combined revenue of our preferred networks of communication – Google, Facebook (Whatsapp), Twitter, Twilio and Pinterest is under $100 billion (70 percent of that coming from Google). The telcos are at the moment threatening to NOT Invest in infrastructure, despite tens of billions in quarterly profit. Hat tip to my friend JP who educated me with some of these facts and many other ‘Telco’ abuses at his home last night. JP also has me reading Bruce Kushnick who has been covering Telco abuse for decades. Definitely worth your time.

I am also in the middle of a capital raise for Social Leverage Fund 2 (thrilled to finally own the domain after negotiating for 5 years).

I just left New York City and Boston for London. I am judging a startup conference in Rotterdam later this week and the people that organized my flights had me stop in Iceland on the way over. Nothing like pitch darkness at 9 am in November.

This is my inspiring room view (finally feel like writing) at The Soho Hotel in London:

I can’t believe the power of my network sometimes and am grateful to all of you that chip in on Stocktwits, Twitter and Gmail to make this ride so enjoyable and productive.

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Howard Lindzon