Europe’s Best Copycatters: The Samwer Brothers, ja!
The Samwer Brothers are the European champions of borrowing other people’s ideas and executing them more successfully. They are especially “notorious for aggressively cloning American sites and launching them in Europe.” Continue reading
HBO’s Luck
I had to bail out on Deadwood at the end of the second season because it was just too depressing. John From Cincinnati was just dreadful. However, I decided to give David Milch a third chance by watching his latest HBO series Luck which provides an inside look at the horse racing business. So far I have been warming up to it slowly. Continue reading
How Ivar Kreuger Disrupted the Match Industry
In order to appreciate the genius of financial wizard Ivar Kreuger (1880 – 1932), you need to first understand just how important matches were in his time to everyone. People used them throughout the day to light the fire-place when it got cold, to light oil lamps at dusk, to light the stove when it was time to cook a meal, to light cigars and cigarettes. Everyone over the age of 8 carried a box of match sticks with them at all times. Continue reading
An hour long look at controversial and outspoken British billionaire Mohammed Al Fayed who is best known for a hostile takeover of Harrod’s as well as being the father of Dodi Fayed who died with Princess Diana back in 1997. Continue reading
RBS: Inside the Bank That Ran Out of Money (BBC Documentary)
This is a thoroughly riveting look at the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland from an overly aggressive mergers & acquisitions-based growth strategy. While the story is about publicly-traded companies there are still a lot of insights for for entrepreneurs interested in growth via acquisitions. There’s also plenty of under-stated British humor in there as should be in any story about people with out-sized egos. Continue reading
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